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The Girls and Grandma Grey. Page 11. 


THE 


PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


BY 

ANNETTE LUCILE NOBLE, 

» * 

Author of ‘‘Silas Gower’s Daughters,” “Under Shelter,” 
“ Out of the Way,” “ Tarryport Schoolgirls,” etc. 


*> * 

> > 
i fi 9 
1 

) 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers , Philada. 




CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

A Houseful of People 5 

CHAPTER II. 

A Morning with Grandma 29 

CHAPTER III. 

Abbey’s “’Versation” 53 

CHAPTER IV. 

Spring 69 

CHAPTER V. 

Happenings 92 

CHAPTER VI. 

Ruth Sails Away 114 

CHAPTER VII. 

Every Day 129 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 

Madge’s Silence 154 

CHAPTER IX. 

Madge’s Journal 181 

CHAPTER X. 

Ruth’s Journal .194 

CHAPTER XI. 

What Madge Wanted 216 

CHAPTER XII. 

Ruth’s Journal 257 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Madge’s Choice 277 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Ruth’s Journal 308 

CHAPTER XV. 

Loraine Faye 319 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Madge’s Awakening 

CHAPTER XVII. 


Reunion 


381 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


CHAPTER I. 

A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE . 

“God, who sees each separate soul, 

Out of commonplace lives makes his beautiful whole.” 

O NE afternoon in midwinter two young 
girls were going home from school 
through the quiet village streets. No one 
meeting them would have supposed Madge 
and Ruth Preston to have been sisters. 
Madge, the elder, was sixteen, a merry, in- 
dependent little body with big black eyes, 
curls of chestnut hair, a brunette skin 
and rose-red cheeks. Before she opened 
her lips one was sure her language would 
be largely made up of adjectives — that she 
was the sort of girl to find life very bright 
or very dull, according to her mood. To- 
day she was vigorously swinging her school- 


6 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


books by their strap and grumbling to her- 
self with an earnestness which might be 
aimless, but for the time was energetic. 
She would have made her grievances audi- 
ble if she had supposed Ruth was listening, 
but half the time Ruth did not listen, par- 
ticularly to complaints. This younger sis- 
ter was taller, more fragile and mature in 
appearance ; her complexion was as delicate 
as the tint of a pearl-shell, her hair a silky, 
pale yellow, but there was nothing insipid 
in her clear-cut features, for the small chin 
was very firm in outline. Her blue-gray 
eyes could gleam with spirit, and, while she 
rarely spoke with half Madge’s decision, 
her words always carried more force. This 
night she was watching the sunset. A flood 
of yellow light filled the sky, tinted the 
snow, and, as the girls began to ascend a 
hill, Ruth, seeing half the spires and house- 
tops of the village outlined on the golden 
background, suddenly exclaimed, 

“It is like the sunset last Wednesday, 
only then there was a flush of crimson 
over it all.” 

“Do you remember last week’s sunset, 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


7 


Ruth Preston?” cried Madge. “Well, you 
are queer! Why, I should as soon think 
of reflecting on some apple-dumpling that 
I ate a year ago yesterday. Such things, 
with me, are the accidents of the moment, 
as Professor Parks said of something to- 
day.” 

“ If a sunset did not mean anything more 
to me than a dumpling, I should not remem- 
ber it ; but I can’t help remembering it as if 
it were a beautiful picture. The way with 
you is you don’t take the trouble to look at 
it,” returned Ruth, in a quiet voice, without 
the least air of superiority. 

“ Yes, I suppose so ; but it does not seem 
to concern me, and it will be gone in a min- 
ute, while my present trouble will remain 
with me.” 

“ What is your ‘ present trouble’ ?” 

“It is yours too, or I should suppose it 
would be: I am tired of being poor. I 
want a beautiful new plaid cashmere school - 
dress, and a sealskin muff and boa, and a 
new piano, and a house like Judge Hodge’s, 
and sloping shoulders like Belle Gates’s, and 
a mother who approves of sending me to 


8 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


dancing-school, and a dancing-scliool to 
send me to if — ” 

“If you only had a mother who would 
send you to one if there was one,” laughed 
Ruth, adding mischievously, “Upon my 
word, I think you might just as profitably 
be thinking about the last year’s apple- 
dumpling.” 

“ Now, don’t you go to talking about what 
is profitable, Ruth. I hate profitable work 
and study, and all that. I want some- 
thing extravagant and extraordinary. If 
only something astonishing would happen ! 
Everything is so monotonous ! Ever since 
I can remember, the family flour-barrel has 
been getting empty and mother has been 
dreading to tell father of it. Every time 
father has been told he has sighed. I de- 
clare, when you picture to yourself a whole 
world full of empty flour-barrels and sigh- 
ing people, life does not seem very desir- 
able;” and Madge’s face grew very long. 

Ruth did not give her sister’s state of 
mind one thought ; she knew that an hour 
or two later Madge would be consuming 
unlimited bread and butter, and probably 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 9 

laughing uproariously. The fancy, how- 
ever, of a world wherein was so much pov- 
erty did impress Euth in a certain way, and 
after a moment she suddenly exclaimed, 

“Yes, Madge, I get discontented often, 
and I wish for all sorts of things that we 
can’t have ; and I suppose we are in a sense 
poor, but then, again, when you think of the 
real poverty there is even in this village, you 
know we are wonderfully well off.” 

“ Well, I suppose we are, when you come 
down to hard common sense,” returned 
Madge, brightening a little, and adding, after 
a moment, “ There cannot be a better father 
or mother than ours in the whole world.” 

To this Euth gave an emphatic assent as 
they swung open a wooden gate and went 
up a plank walk to the door of an old-fash- 
ioned yellow wooden house. They opened 
the unlocked door, entering a very wide and 
singularly cozy hall. One would hardly 
think to call it a hall at all, for it was evi- 
dently a room in which the family sat to 
read or to sew or to receive callers. On the 
wall was a cheerful yellow-tinted paper, and 
here and there hung some old family por- 


10 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


traits. At the lower end, filling all the 
space except that taken by the door into the 
dining-room, were shelves of books. None 
of these books had fine bindings, none were 
in “ sets,” but there seemed to be an endless 
variety of them. To the girls each one had 
an individuality of its own, from the theo- 
logical works that had come down from 
their mother’s great-grandfather to the well- 
thumbed Hollo books and Hans Ander- 
sen’s fairy-tales. On one side the hall was 
a long, deep haircloth lounge with great, 
soft, red-covered cushions, and : opposite this 
was an open fireplace where always glowed 
a beautiful fire. On the mantelpiece above 
it stood a quaint Chinese jug and two tall 
bronze and crystal “ girandoles,” or big 
branched candlesticks, while each side of 
the fireplace was a comfortable great arm- 
chair with rockers. The carpet was worn 
and dull, but Grandma Grey, as the chil- 
dren always called Mrs. Preston’s mother, a 
dear old lady who lived with them, had 
braided of gay woolen some mats that were 
as pretty as they were useful in covering 
the worn places. 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


11 


When the girls opened the door, the old 
lady sat by the fire in the warm twilight. 
She had been knitting, but the sleek old 
tabby-cat had bounced into her lap, and 
now persisted in rubbing her head on the 
knitting-needles. 

“ Is it cold out, children ?” 

“ Yes, it is very cold,” replied Ruth, shiv- 
ering and kneeling down close to the bright 
fire. 

Madge fluttered about, hung her outer 
garment in a little closet one side the front 
door, found a big apple somewhere, and soon 
was eating and chatting and rocking all at 
once. When she had learned that her moth- 
er was out, her father not home, and that 
nothing had happened since she left the 
house at noon, she began to ask questions 
of which she already knew the answers; 
but then she must talk of something. 

“ You were rich when you were my age, 
were you not, grandma?” she asked. 

“Well, my parents were in very good cir- 
cumstances.” 

“You had an old family tea-set, didn’t 
you — pure silver ? and colored servants, and 


12 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


our great-grandfather’s coach had a coat-of- 
arms on it ? Oh dear ! I wish we had an 
old family tea-set.” 

The dining-room door had suddenly 
opened to let in a boy of ten, a short, 
sturdy chap with a big head and a face so 
full of quizzical good-humor one forgot to 
call him homely. 

“ We have,” he remarked, coolly — “ three 
old family teapots all in a row on the top 
shelf in the buttery. One was not meant 
to stand on the stove, so, of course, you put 
it there, and the bottom melted off; one 
lost its nose a night when I helped get sup- 
per, and one was honorably discharged with 
a hole in its side.” 

“ Oh, nonsense, Johnny ! What I would 
like is real splendor,” said Madge, dolor- 
ously, while Johnny pulled the cat down 
for not unkind but very unceremonious 
treatment. 

Now, Grandma Grey was a rather state- 
ly old gentlewoman, and at all times was 
pleased to tell the children of a kind of life 
that seemed to them rare and delightful ; 
but she was an earnest Christian, a sweet, 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


13 


contented soul, so to-night she replied to 
Madge’s girlish words in a different strain : 

“ My dear child, thank the Lord every 
day for your countless blessings. You have 
a home full of love and good cheer, a moth- 
er who is the very heart of it all, and a 
father wise enough to teach you anything. 
At your age I had no mother, my home was 
sad if it was fine, and I was often very lone- 
ly. Splendor is nothing to be compared with 
contentment, and one can learn to be con- 
tented anywhere God puts him or her.” 

Madge was about to speak, when Ruth, 
who had not changed her position since 
she had entered and knelt before the fire, 
suddenly swayed back and dropped for a 
second on Johnny’s shoulder, then slipped 
off and fell to the floor. He thought her 
in play at first, but, seeing her face in' the 
firelight, he cried, 

“What ails her, grandma? Look how 
white she is!” 

They discovered at once that she had 
fainted, and Madge stretched her out on 
the rug, while grandma worked over her 
and Johnny ran for water. She recovered 


14 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

consciousness in a moment or two, and was 
able to be helped to the lounge. 

“ You need not be frightened,” she said, 
laughing a little hysterically. “ I was tired 
and very cold ; when I began to get warm, 
I felt myself floating off and dissolving into 
nothing.” 

4 4 You had not dissolved when you struck 
me : you came like a hundred pounder,” put 
in Johnny. 

44 Hush, little boy ! I am afraid your sis- 
ter is sick. — Do you feel better now, dear ? 
You are as white as a sheet of paper,” said 
the old lady, rubbing Ruth’s hands in her 
own withered ones. 

Before Ruth could reply the door opened 
and in came their mother. Her sweet, bright 
face lengthened in a second as she espied 
the little group about Ruth, and Madge 
had to exclaim hastily, 

44 It is nothing, mother ; it is all over now. 
Ruthie’s fainted away. I declare, I wish, 
now, it had been my experience. Nothing 
interesting ever does happen to me — even 
fainting away.” 

Of course the mother had to ask all sorts 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 15 

of anxious, tender questions, and it came out 
that Ruth was not very well. She had con- 
stant headache and a little cough, the walk 
to school gave her a pain in the side, and 
altogether she needed the petting and the 
nursing that she was now sure to get in 
this warm home-nest. 

“ I shall have Dr. Hickox examine you 
right away, and you must not go to school 
another day until you are stronger.” 

“ Oh ! and stop my literature lessons, 
mother, and all the rest?” cried the little 
girl among the red cushions. 

Ruth was very ambitious and exceedingly 
studious. For a few moments it seemed to 
her that she could not stay away from school ; 
but when Mrs. Preston had talked to her a 
while after this, the whole affair took a dif- 
ferent aspect. She saw that the history and 
the literature could go on at home, with her 
mother to make these lessons delightful. 
Now she could have time to finish the re- 
markable scrap-book long ago begun ; and 
so, weak and tired as Ruth felt to-night, it 
was soothing to hear the kind old grand- 
mother telling how “the poor child must 


16 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

have a rest and get more sleep, with some 
change and diversion. She doesn’t eat 
enough, either; we must tempt her appe- 
tite.” 

“Now, Johnny, just see how things go 
in this world,” Madge was saying. “ Here 
Kuth wants to go to school, and I would 
just as lief as not be delicate this term if I 
could shirk those horrible examples of par- 
tial payment.” 

“ Yes, ’tis too bad. But say : now you 
have seen how it is done, couldn’t you faint 
away when it comes your turn to go to the 
blackboard ?” 

“Yes, for once, maybe; but I couldn’t 
faint every day at every example, could I ?” 

“ No, and you couldn’t turn white to save 
your life ; so that’s no go.” 

Madge’s troubles were soon past, and in 
a few moments she was planning for Buth 
many pleasant ways of passing the time, so 
that the home-staying sister should not get 
lonely. By this time a certain savory odor 
came from some unseen region, and Johnny 
exclaimed, 

“Abbey’s making waffles for supper; that 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE . 


17 


is why she has not been in to look at Ruth. 
She doesn’t know she fainted.” 

“ Father is late to-night,” said Mrs. Pres- 
ton, putting away her bonnet and shawl. 

A little later he came, very glad to get 
into the genial warmth, and reporting that 
it was very dark and cold out of doors. 
He was a tall, thin, scholarly-looking man 
with gray hair, clear, kindly-gleaming eyes 
and a grave voice. Ill-health had forced 
him years ago to leave the ministry, and at 
this date he was principal of a boys’ and 
girls’ academy. He listened quietly to the 
various versions of the late episode; then, 
softly stroking Ruth’s hair, he remarked, 

“Your mother is quite right: no more 
hard study and confinement in school for 
you until you are stronger.” 

“Supper is ready,” announced Johnny, 
after an exploring-expedition ; and, throw- 
ing open the door into the dining-room, he 
dashed at his grandmother with an absurd 
flourish and begged to escort her to the ta- 
ble. Johnny was, as his father frequently 
remarked, “somewhat of a monkey.” They 
persuaded Ruth to lie still on the lounge 


18 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


and let Abbey bring her supper to her. 
She consented, and watched them as they 
sat pleasantly chatting around the table. 
The dining-room was another unconven- 
tional, cheerful place, full of old-fashioned 
furniture, with bright chintz curtains and 
a south window full of flowering shrubs. 

When Abbey came with Ruth’s supper, 
Ruth sat among her cushions, and, laughing 
at her own “laziness,” replied to the girl’s 
minute questions as to what “a real faint 
was like, any way.” 

Now, as Abbey is not an unimportant 
inmate of this house, we may as well speak 
of her in passing. Mrs. Preston had taken 
Abbey from an orphan asylum when the 
latter was a child of seven. She took her 
out of pity. The Prestons were then living 
next to the asylum, and Abbey used to come 
and confide her troubles to the lady through 
a hole in the fence — how she longed to “ live 
in a little house, and eat at a little table,” 
and own “a doll, and wear cloth clothes.” 
She used pathetically to tell that there 
seemed to be so many of her she was sick 
of seeing herself. By this she meant that 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


19 


every child in the asylum wore a dingy, 
nondescript uniform and looked like every 
other one. Mrs. Preston took her, treated 
her very kindly, and in return Abbey gave 
to her most unbounded gratitude and affec- 
tion. When the children came, she was 
their devoted slave. As time ran on she 
developed striking qualities. At twenty- 
two she was “ one of the family for life,” as 
she declared ; but no member could be less 
exacting and more useful. In person Ab- 
bey was short, almost a dwarf. She had a 
round, good-natured face, prominent green- 
ish eyes and brown hair which she would 
keep short enough to stand erect all over 
her large head. She was skilled in all 
kinds of housework, and was a good seam- 
stress. Anything which must be learned 
from a book she had always detested. It 
was only after pangs, tears and mighty re- 
bellions that she had ever learned to read. 
She counted on her fingers like a savage and 
spelled (when forced to spell) phonetically, 
but after no system ever devised by man. 
When she was of an age to earn wages, Mrs. 
Preston began to pay her what she thought 


20 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


was right. At first Abbey resented it with 
grief and wrath, as if she were being de- 
graded in rank. When persuaded to look 
at the matter more calmly, only one argu- 
ment had moved her — namely, that people 
would call the Prestons stingy and unjust 
if they took her services for nothing but 
her board and clothes. Once, when finances 
were at a very low ebb, Mrs. Preston begged 
her to go away where she could earn more 
money ; but Abbey pleaded in a hurt way : 
“ You might just as well turn off Ruth or 
Madge, and it is awful cruel to make me 
feel like a hired girl and nothing more. ,, 
After that it was settled that Abbey should 
share their fortunes, good or ill. It was 
necessary, however, to put her wages for 
her in the savings-bank, experience having 
proved that when they were paid to her she 
spent them in marbles, taffy or jointed dolls, 
according to the latest whim of the children. 
We have given considerable space to Abbey, 
but she deserves all the honor due to unsel- 
fishness. 

When she had served Ruth and heard 
about her late attack, she looked her curi- 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


21 


ously over, as if expecting to find visible 
marks left on her somewhere; then she 
said, 

“ It is books — just nothing else, Miss 
Ruthie. I don’t believe books was ever 
meant to be studied. If I’d been kept at 
’em as your mother begun with me, I’d have 
been pilfering around some lunatic asylum 
this minute. I’m thankful she see what I 
was good for and let me do it.” 

Ruth gave a little laugh at thought of 
honest Abbey “ pilfering around” anywhere; 
but, as she hardly knew what word Abbey 
wanted to use, she only laughed. It was 
of no use to set Abbey right on such trifles. 
Her waffles were delicious, so Ruth praised 
them and sent her away happy. 

When supper was over, Madge and 
Johnny stayed in the dining-room to study ; 
for during the process of taking in learning 
the latter always swung his heels and buzzed 
as if a great deal of inside machinery were 
sadly in need of oil. Madge kept him 
company because where the rest of the 
family were she would talk instead of study- 
ing. The elder members of the household 


22 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


returned to the hall and sat about the fire 
to enjoy the evening in comfort after the 
labors of the day. Mrs. Preston, who had 
made a few calls that afternoon, told grand- 
ma a funny incident she had heard, together 
with some innocent bits of gossip. The 
“ Professor,” as every one called Mr. Pres- 
ton, read his paper for a while, when, hap- 
pening to put his hand in his pocket, he 
drew out a letter and exclaimed, 

“ Well, well ! I forgot to tell you some 
news that will astonish you, Mary. Here 
is a letter I received this noon from John 
Pay nor. He is going to Europe in May 
on business for the firm, and at first he 
meant to return as soon as his business was 
done; but he needs a play-spell, and his 
wife — Cousin Jane — wants to travel a little. 
In view of these facts, he says, he shall stay 
abroad six or seven months.” 

“ Will they take Bert with them ?” asked 
Mrs. Preston. 

“ No, I think not. John says he wants 
very much to go, but for many reasons he 
does not think it wise. Bert has been inter- 
rupted in his studies and is backward for 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


23 


his age ; so his father says he must apply 
himself and waste no time for a few years. 
The reason of John’s letter, however, was 
not so much to say they were going to 
Europe as to tell us that they were coming 
to make us a brief visit as soon as he could 
leave his business.” 

“We will enjoy their visit,” said Mrs. 
Preston, “ but it seems a little odd to come 
just before their trip, especially as they 
were here in the fall.” 

“John says he does want to see us for 
some particular purpose. I cannot imagine 
what it may be.” 

“ I devoutly hope,” exclaimed grandma, 
dropping her knitting in her lap, “ that he 
does not want to leave that awful boy in 
your care.” 

Mrs. Preston looked grave, while the 
Professor laughed. Grandma had put into 
words the thought that had suddenly entered 
both their minds. 

“ Such a little pest as he was that time 
they brought him last ! In fact, he always 
has been a dreadful child. Before he was 
out of dresses he put the parlor copy of 


24 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Shakespeare in the tea-kettle and boiled it 
to rags/’ sighed the old lady. 

It was singular that, while Grandma 
Grey considered boys in general terrible 
things, she never could be brought to own 
that her favorite Johnny was anything but 
a model child. Even when he dyed her 
cat indigo blue, she chose to consider it 
merely a sort of harmless experiment in 
chemistry. 

“ Oh, he is not our boy,” returned the 
Professor, “ or else we would find him 
endurable ; but we won’t worry over any- 
thing so vague as this possibility.” 

Mrs. Preston’s face brightened. She 
turned to speak to Ruth ; then, seeing her 
eyes shut, she thought her asleep. But 
Ruth was very wide awake : she was fancy- 
ing how it would seem to travel — to wander, 
for instance, over some half-ruined castle 
where lords and ladies had lived in former 
ages, to look down from high walls, to peer 
into dark dungeons. Her waking dreams 
at last began to lose distinctness, and she 
was certainly dozing when some one lifted 
the old-fashioned knocker left on the front 


A HO USEFUL OF PEOPLE. 25 

door and dropped it heavily. Before the 
Professor could rise from his easy-chair the 
door opened, and in walked a tall, thin, 
elderly man, who coolly remarked, “ How 
do you all do?” as he came toward the 
fire. 

Everybody had conquered the first sur- 
prise in a moment. The Professor had 
said, “ Why, it is you , is it, Henry ?” and 
Mrs. Preston had given him a chair. He 
merely nodded in recognition of her action, 
and then, as an after-thought, held out his 
hand to Grandma Grey, but even to her 
said nothing. 

“ Traveled far ?” asked the head of the 
house, with a twinkle in his eye. 

“From Kansas City.” 

“Are you well?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Have you had your supper?” asked 
Mrs. Preston. 

“All I want,” was the quiet reply. 

Ruth, who had risen from her reclining 
position at the new-comer’s entrance, but 
who had received no recognition whatever, 
now sank back to hide her smiles. This 


26 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


was her father's own brother, whom she 
had not seen in two years, but whose ways 
she well understood. Ever since she could 
remember, at intervals of from one to three 
years Uncle Henry had appeared thus among 
them. From whence he came, what he had 
been doing or where he went when he left 
them was known to the Professor if his 
guest saw fit to tell, not otherwise. His 
own peculiarity was simply this: he hated 
talk — or, rather, he hated to talk. He was 
a single man, of some means (how well off 
no one knew) ; he had no disagreeable 
traits. He dropped into the family circle, 
asking nothing but to be there and to be let 
alone. Sometimes he stayed a month, some- 
times six months. When he left, he always 
put in Mrs. Preston's hand a sum of money 
equal to an ordinary board-bill, and depart- 
ed with never a word of farewell. Nat- 
urally enough, the children were not enthu- 
siastic in their affection for him, but they 
could not dislike him, as he in no way inter- 
fered with them. He spent his time in long 
walks or over a book. No one, after the 
first civilities, ever spoke to him unneces- 


A HOUSEFUL OF PEOPLE. 


27 


sarily, and he himself made always the 
briefest response possible. Even this even- 
ing, when he had gotten himself into a warm 
corner, the flow of conversation went on as 
if he were not there. At intervals the 
Professor read paragraphs from the even- 
ing paper, and between-times Mrs. Preston 
planned how to remake the girls’ last-year 
merino dresses. 

A little later Ruth found herself rubbing 
her eyes, while her mother’s laughing voice 
sounded in her ears : 

“I declare, I shall have to shake you 
and unbutton your dress for you, as I used 
to when you were five years old and had 
this same trick of going sound asleep on 
this old lounge.” 

“I say, Ruth,” whispered Johnny, “Un- 
cle Henry is here. Same good boy he always 
was, you know ; ‘ seen-and-not-heard ’ sort. 
How they must have drilled that into him 
when he was young !” 

“ Go right to bed,” said Mother Preston, 
sternly, but with a little pucker about her 
lips, which Johnny kissed as he departed. 

And that day ended — the last of Ruth’s 


28 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


school-days for that term, as she said to her- 
self half regretfully, half gladly ; for she 
was convinced her mother knew best in 
saying she needed a rest. 


CHAPTER II. 

A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 

“The creed of the true saint is to make the best of life, 
and make the most of it.” — Chapin. 

T HE expected arrival of guests at the 
Prestons’ always made a certain stir of 
preparation which the children found de- 
lightful. The house was not large enough 
for “ spare-rooms,” so that Madge must 
help her mother change about the sleep- 
ing-arrangements. If Abbey was a little 
busier than usual in the kitchen, Grandma 
Grey was always glad of an excuse to help in 
that department. Accordingly, a week or so 
after the evening last mentioned, everybody 
was somewhat excited to learn from a tele- 
gram that the Raynors would be in town 
that night. It happened, fortunately, to be 
Saturday, when Madge was home to help or 
hinder as the case might be. She tied a 

29 


30 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


little red handkerchief over her glossy curls 
and at once attacked the pretty parlor, which 
was always her favorite field of action. She 
thought the big-figured Brussels carpet there, 
with its gay roses, the height of elegance ; 
she admired the linen window-shades, on 
which were painted tropical landscapes ; she 
found no fault with the ancient mahogany 
furniture when she had polished it until it 
shone like a mirror. The room was always 
in order, but Madge liked to rearrange the 
shells, the books of engravings, her grand- 
mother's screens of painted velvet and some 
Indian curiosities. Johnny’s share of the 
work was to make a fire in the wood-burn- 
ing stove — for they did not afford a fire 
here every day — and as he piled in the 
“ chunks," to keep all day “if the damper 
was shut," he asked Madge what Bert Bay- 
nor was “like." 

“ I have not seen him since I was eight 
years old and he was eleven," she replied. 
“Then he was a great deal better-looking 
than you are, Johnny, but not half as 
good-natured. I never was in so much 
mischief in my life as during the week he 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 31 

was here. But I remember he was very 
generous, and was always buying candy.” 

Johnny mused as he lighted the fire; 
then he remarked, 

“He’s a big-feeling chap by this time. 
About eighteen years old, isn’t he?” 

Madge was about to add some further in- 
formation to that already given him, when 
grandma called her to stone raisins for a 
kind of spice-cake no one ever made quite as 
nice as the old lady. The kitchen was full 
of agreeable odors, for Abbey was making 
mince-pies and roasting fowls. Buth had 
ensconced herself in a quiet corner with 
her work-basket. Madge went to work at 
the raisins after a warning from her grand- 
mother not to drop more into her mouth than 
she put into the bowl. 

“What under the sun are you doing, 
Ruth ?” laughed Madge soon. “ I never 
saw you busy over such embroidery before.” 

Ruth joined the laugh as she displayed 
a lapful of woolen socks in all stages of 
dilapidation, some toeless, some heelless, 
some almost soleless. 

“These are Uncle Henry’s,” she explained. 


32 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Mamma found them in his room, and 
was going to mend them herself; but, with 
all papa’s, Johnny’s and the rest, I think 
she has too many. Now I am out of school 
I mean to mend my own stockings and Un- 
cle Henry’s.” 

“ I am glad I go to school,” said Madge.— 
“ Grandma, did you have to darn stockings 
when you were young?” 

“ I not only darned them, but in the long 
evenings I had my task in knitting,” replied 
the old lady. “ No young lady was thought 
ready to be married until she had knit her- 
self a pillow-case full of stockings; so one 
had to begin early.” 

“ I should never have been anybody’s 
grandmother, then, if I had been born sev- 
enty-seven years ago.” 

“ Oh yes, dear ; you would have done as 
I did. I was taught needlework, and I em- 
broidered a cambric Vandyke. I made patch- 
work at six years old, and at seven I made 
a beautiful sampler. I can remember it per- 
fectly — half a yard square of yellow canvas 
with the alphabet in capital letters at the 
top, then numbers from one to ten, then the 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


33 


date; next small black silk italics over a 
trailing green vine with pretty little pink 
roses, and the motto : ‘ Beauty and wit will 
die, learning will vanish away, and all the 
arts of life be soon forgotten ; but virtue 
will remain for ever.’ When I pricked my 
little tender fingers over those grave words, 
I didn’t suppose I should, three-quarters of 
a century after, be repeating them and 
remembering the beauty and the wit — the 
dear, youthful faces I have seen vanish in 
all these years,” said the old lady, gazing 
thoughtfully over the young girls’ heads 
at the sky beyond the neighboring roofs. 

Abbey, who regarded grandma as nothing 
less than a saint, exclaimed, as she rolled out 
pie-crust, 

“And you didn’t think, either, I suppose, 
that you were going to show in your own 
self how pure goodness just outlasted all 
the rest? — though, as to that, you’re hand- 
some yet.” 

Grandma blushed like a girl, and went 
right on describing her sampler: 

“ You might laugh at the things I worked 
next, but I think they were as sensible as the 

3 


34 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS , 


fashionable sunflowers nowadays. Any way, 
I embroidered two white silk worsted roost- 
ers with long black tails, two big blue-and- 
red roses, some trees, some baskets of fruit, a 
few yellow birds and a couple of grass-green 
silk dogs, then a red, yellow and green bor- 
der around the whole. How I would like 
to see that new bright sampler and be put 
back for a few minutes with the friends I 
showed it to that day it was finished in the 
years so far away !” 

“ Did you go to school in those days ?” 
asked Madge, popping a raisin into her 
mouth. 

“ I had a governess first — a Miss Nancy 
Smith — whom I ungratefully considered a 
cross old maid because she was of sterling 
old Puritan stock and strictly enforced my 
Bible lessons and catechism ; I have lived 
to prove to myself the value of her instruc- 
tions. Later I studied Latin with Dr. 
Strong, the village clergyman ; I used to 
go to his study tugging a big dictionary 
with brass clasps which had been my great- 
grandfather’s. Dr. Strong was very learned, 
but very lazy ; he used to sit during the les- 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 35 

son with his heels out of the window and 
smoking a pipe. I was as fond of reading 
as Ruth, and had my little library of Mrs. 
Chapone's works, Miss Edgeworth's, Han- 
nah More's, and others." 

“ I wish I had known you in those days," 
said Ruth, threading her darning-needle, 
while Madge irrelevantly inquired, 

“Did you have pretty dresses, grandma?" 
“ Well, I never had rich ones or any 
jewels when I was a child ; such a display 
would have been thought vulgar. I re- 
member my first visit to Boston was made 
in winter. My father took me the hundred 
miles in an open sleigh. We went to the 
Marboro' House — an excellent hotel then — 
and after dinner, which was served in our 
room, the maid dressed me in a silk and 
worsted cloth called ‘ Caroline plaid ' after 
the queen of England, who was then in 
great trouble and much talked of. That 
same afternoon my father bought me a seal- 
skin cap of a golden color, with a gold-lace 
band and a tassel to match." 

“ Well, I am sure that was ‘ gorgeous,' as 
girls say nowadays," commented Madge. 


36 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ When I was a young lady,” continued 
the old lady, getting, as the girls mischiev- 
ously called it, “ a little worldly ” in conse- 
quence of the interest shown in her remin- 
iscences, “ I had made over for me my moth- 
er’s wedding-dress of rose-colored silk with 
pointed-toed slippers to match.” 

“And you liked it, didn’t you?” urged 
Madge. “ I know that girls are always the 
same.” 

Grandma paused in her cake-making and 
looked at the gay speaker with a beautiful, 
tender light in her old face : 

“Yes, dear; they are always a little apt 
to want the glitter and pleasant things of 
the present, and to forget the days that may 
come when these will be only foolish little 
memories, so that they need old friends to 
tell them how all they can bring out of their 
youth-time of any value is the grace that 
the heart gains, the characters that they 
build up by the help of God’s Holy Spirit.” 

“ I don’t think I’ll ever want to be old,” 
began Ruth ; then, lest in some way she 
might pain the old lady, she interpolated : 
“ I might if I were sure to become as good 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


37 


and useful and lovely as you are, grandma ; 
but it must be so sad to outlive so much and 
so many.” 

“ It is only your love, children, that makes 
you see anything remarkable in your worn- 
out grandmother ; but I thank God for your 
love, if it is partial. Yes, I get lonely some- 
times, but I like to say over to myself a poem 
I learned a few years ago. When I put this 
cake in the oven, I will tell you two or three 
verses.” 

The girls were quite sure they had heard 
it before, but they liked to hear the old 
lady’s sweet, quavering voice ; while Abbey, 
who could no more have repeated a verse of 
poetry than she could have composed one, 
always listened with arms akimbo and mouth 
half open. 

The cake in the oven, the old lady sat in 
an easy-chair to rest and began : 


“ ‘ Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover, 
Seen in the light of suns which long have set ; 
Beloved ones whose earthly toil is over 
Draw near, as if they lived among us yet. 

“ ‘Old voices call me ; through the dusk returning, 
I hear the echo of departed feet ; 


38 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning, 
What is the charm which makes old things so sweet. 

“ ‘ Must the old joys be evermore withholden ? 

Even their memory keeps me pure and true ; 

And yet from out Jerusalem the golden 

God speaketh, saying, “ I make all things new.” 

“‘He giveth life — ay, life in all its sweetness: 

Old loves, old sunny scenes, will he restore ; 

Only the curse of sin and incompleteness 

Shall taint thy work and vex thy heart no more. 

“ ‘ Love him in daily work and earnest living, 

And faith shall lift thee to his sunlit heights ; 

Then shall a psalm of gladness and thanksgiving 
Fill the calm hour that comes between the lights/ ” 


There was a little silence after that before 
Ruth said, 

“ Common, every-day lives of mere school- 
girls like Madge and me seem so — Well, 
just commonplace : nothing more.” 

“The best things always are common- 
place,” replied grandma ; “ nothing is more 
commonplace than sunshine, or better. It 
is a good deal so with people. I knew a 
young woman once who was just wonderful 
in great emergencies, but the rest of the 
time she was not any more desirable than 
an emergency.” 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


39 


“ But it must be fine to be something 
very remarkable,” said Madge. 

“ Yes, to be remarkably faithful, like 
Abbey here,” said grandma, placidly. (It 
was always the old lady’s way to drop a 
w r ord of deserved praise in some obscure 
life where it would remain like a sweet per- 
fume long after.) “ Like Abbey, who does 
her duty so well every day that we forget 
to think how she cares for all our comfort ; 
but her heaventy Father takes note of such 
conscientious work.” 

Abbey spluttered out, “ Why, now, grand- 
ma, you stop puffin’ me up,” but there was 
a suspicious shining in her eyes as she plied 
her rolling-pin with renewed vigor. 

“ Well, I hope I am being faithful in 
seeding these raisins ; they are sticky and 
disagreeable enough,” said Madge, who was 
now on a second supply, for another cake. 

“And you have rewarded your own virtue 
so steadily as you went along that you don’t 
want to eat any more, do you?” laughed 
Buth; and after that they chatted about 
all sorts of subjects, but chiefly of the 
expected guests. 


40 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Now, for some reason best known to them- 
selves, the children had decided that Bert 
Bay nor would very likely come with his 
parents. Madge and Johnny sincerely 
hoped this would be the case. Buth was 
not so desirous to see the youth ; she remem- 
bered too many of his old pranks. Up 
stairs was a drawing-book which she had 
once proudly displayed as full of her “ draw- 
ings from nature.” Could she forget how 
Bert made over one perfect cob of corn into 
just as perfect an alligator by one stroke 
that added a tail and a few touches for a 
head, how he pretended he had read her 
diary, how he gave her candy full of red 
pepper? No; Buth shared her grand- 
mother's aversion to Bert, although in a 
much milder form. 

In the afternoon there came a severe storm 
of wind, rain and sleet. The tempest howled 
about the old yellow house, making the hos- 
pitable preparations within seem doubly 
cheerful. Mr. Preston went to the station 
to meet the guests about four o’clock, but 
the train was delayed, and it was almost 
dark before Johnny, watching at the parlor- 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 41 

window, cried out that he saw the old hack 
from the station coming slowly up the hill. 

“ Bert did not come,” he added, a few 
minutes later, when only three people 
alighted at the gate and hurried toward 
the door the girls held open. 

“ Cousin Jane ” was the first to get under 
shelter in the warm, bright hall, and the 
girls busied themselves getting her out of 
her numerous wraps ; while Mrs. Preston, 
after a hearty greeting, hurried to welcome 
Cousin John as cordially. 

Mrs. Baynor was a short, plump, fair 
woman of middle age with many amiable 
qualities and some amusing peculiarities. 
She imagined that her sagacity and knowl- 
edge of human nature were potent in con- 
trolling her husband’s thoughts and conduct, 
and that she was a person singularly free 
from whims and prejudices. He never con- 
tradicted her ; he carried an umbrella when- 
ever she declared it was going to rain ; he 
frequently answered her very original prop- 
ositions with an appreciative smile, which 
showed, of course, that he agreed with her. 
He was a very different type of man from 


42 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


the tall, grave Professor, being a large, rud- 
dy, broad-shouldered gentleman with a loud, 
jovial voice and an air of good-comradeship 
which the Preston young people found very 
attractive. Soon after their arrival Abbey 
had supper ready, and it was a meal so ap- 
petizing, or else enlivened by such pleasant 
conversation, that they lingered long over it. 

“ So you are going to Europe, are you, 
John? and Cousin Jane does not mean to 
be left behind,” said Mrs. Preston. 

“ No, indeed !” said Mrs. Raynor, prompt- 
ly. “ John could never get himself around 
safely ; he speaks no foreign language, and 
he is very absent-minded.’’ 

John gallantly remarked that he should 
be absent-hearted if he were to leave his 
wife at home, and then the talk ran on 
about their proposed trip, until there came 
a loud rap of the great brass knocker on 
the front door. 

“ Who can be calling such a wild evening 
as this ?” exclaimed Mrs. Preston. 

“ I would not wonder if it were old Dr. 
Hickox,” returned the Professor ; “I met 
him to-day in the post-office, and told him 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 43 

John Raynor would be in town to-night. — 
He always keeps a lively interest in you 
because of your kindness to that wild boy 
of his ” 

Sure enough, it was the doctor. Abbey 
led him into the parlor, where the others 
immediately followed — that is, all but Un- 
cle Henry. For him Abbey always lighted 
the student-lamp and made bright the din- 
ing-room fire. Here at the table he would 
read until bedtime. 

Dr. Hickox took off his overcoat and 
visited for an hour or more before he rose 
to go. 

Now, no one of the cheerful group in the 
cozy old parlor had any idea that the doc- 
tor’s call had not been purely a social one — 
that is, no one but the Professor. In the 
last few days, while Mrs. Preston had been 
nursing, petting and worrying a little over 
Ruth, he had been as sympathetic and 
thoughtful as ever, but he had betrayed 
no unusual anxiety about his daughter’s 
health ; it would have alarmed his wife had 
she known how troubled he really felt. 
Years ago he had seen two young and 


44 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


lovely sisters about the age of his Ruth fade 
away with consumption ; he resolved to know 
at once if his child were in the least danger 
from any disease of this sort. Dr. Hickox, 
who had received orders to be cautious, ap- 
parently finished his call before he began to 
banter Madge about spoiling her eyes with 
over-study — a favorite joke of his. 

Mrs. Preston took an opportunity to whis- 
per to her husband, 

“ Ask his advice about Ruth ; now we 
have him here, it is just the time.” 

So Ruth was led into the hall and taken 
in hand by the old doctor, who amused her 
with many comical speeches while he pos- 
sessed himself of much information. Final- 
ly, he dismissed her as “ good for seventy 
years yet if she took care of herself.” When 
she had returned to the parlor, he said to 
the Professor, 

“ That girl has your brain, and she would 
be an intelligent, cultured woman if she 
never again saw the inside of a schoolroom. 
Stop all hard study ; just let her 4 browse 
around’ among books, as somebody said, 
and the education will come.” 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


45 


“ Do you see any indications of consump- 
tion, doctor ?” interrupted Mr. Preston. 

“ No ; but if you overwork and tire her, 
exhaust her vitality, let her take a hard 
cold and neglect it, you would find out the 
difference between her constitution and 
Madge’s. Ruth wants to be well fed, kept 
out of doors, put to bed early ; and if next 
summer you could send her to the seaside 
or the mountains, that might do her a world 
of good. In the mean time, I assure you 
she is not ill, but she is very weak — ‘ run 
down,’ as the old women say.” 

Much relieved to hear this last assertion, 
the Professor saw the doctor depart and 
went himself back to the family and guests. 
He fancied, as he joined them, that some- 
thing a little unusual was under considera- 
tion. Grandma Grey was knitting as if 
some great issue depended on the activity 
of her needles, Mrs. Preston looked uncom- 
fortable, and Madge and Johnny were ra- 
diant with suppressed fun whose source he 
began to suspect a little later 

“ Yes, the moment John said that Bert 
must stay behind us I thought, ‘ There is no 


46 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


one to whom I would trust him so soon as 
to Professor Preston.’ You see, he could 
come right here for his vacation, which 
must be spent out of the city, and we, 
knowing him to be in your family, would 
feel perfectly easy in our minds about him. 
Then, when the school-year began, he could 
commence here right under the Professor, 
and I have no doubt he would make better 
progress than he ever made in his life be- 
fore. Bert is a little backward ; he has 
such an active mind that he can’t seem to 
concentrate his attention on any one thing 
long enough to master it.” 

Mrs. Baynor was speaking; and when 
she paused just there for breath, Grandma 
Grey innocently commented : 

“ He used to be very active in body too.” 

“ Yes, he is ; you will find him very 
lively. No house can be dull with our 
Bert in it. Now, of course, I don’t say 
you must fall into this arrangement, but I 
want you to consider it while we are here ; 
and I do hope you will give us a favorable 
decision.” 

Mrs. Preston was never speechless unless 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


47 


it was necessary to say something disagree- 
able. Now, she did not want Bert Baynor 
in her family, but to tell this to his mother 
was not easy. Her husband, who under- 
stood her well, relieved her embarrassment 
by calmly questioning the parents about 
Bert and ignoring the point urged by his 
mother. 

Johnny repaired to the dining-room and 
announced to Abbey that Bert was surely 
coming to stay a year, if not longer. Uncle 
Henry, glancing up from his book, listened 
unnoticed. Abbey, who was darning a big 
hole in Johnny’s jacket, clasped the gar- 
ment to her bosom with a gesture of dis- 
may : 

“ If they are goin’ travel in’, they just 
better take along that son o’ theirs and 
leave him in some heathen country. The 
natives couldn’t teach him anything more 
outrageous than he always knew, and he 
might get into office among them. — Say, 
now, Johnny, will your mar stand that?” 

“ I don’t believe they are going to let her 
have any choice. Besides, Abbey, if he is 
worse than a heathen, we ought to be mis- 


48 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


sionaries. Living with a good little boy 
like me might do wonders for him,” re- 
turned Johnny, rolling up the whites of 
his eyes. 

“See here!” said Abbey; “I would not 
set up for a missionary until I had quit 
teariir my clothes all to pieces slidin’ down 
hill.” 

“ Who is Bert Baynor, and what is he 
coming here for?” suddenly asked Uncle 
Henry. 

It was so remarkable for him to show 
any curiosity that Johnny promptly told 
him all he knew of the matter. The gen- 
tleman listened, made no remark, and soon 
resumed his reading. 

When Buth left the old doctor, she re- 
turned to her low seat by the fire, and no 
one noticed her preoccupied air. She did 
not even arouse herself to a sense of what 
was going on regarding Bert Baynor, for 
her mind was suddenly full of new, strange 
thoughts. Johnny used to say that Madge 
would run straight toward a stone wall and 
never know it until she bumped her head ; 
with Buth it was different. The moment 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 49 

Dr. Hickox summoned her, she knew with 
lightning-like intuition that her father had 
asked him to call ; she read the anxiety in 
the Professor’s face as he pretended to be 
examining the barometer while he awaited 
the doctor’s judgment. She even remem- 
bered those sisters of whom her father 
had often spoken — the one just seventeen, 
who was never ill enough to remain in bed, 
but one summer morning, sitting in her 
easy-chair, leaned back and softly breathed 
out her life. Ruth had thought that a 
strangely beautiful way to die — that is, for 
some one else to die. To-night a fancy 
crept into her mind that filled her with 
a mysterious awe. What if she were some 
day to slip out of this warm, bright home, 
if there should be an evening — months, 
years, hence — when the cheerful group 
would be complete without her ? Glancing 
about at the familiar faces, with something 
rising in her throat and eyes dimming a 
little, she saw Grandma Grey smiling se- 
renely over her knitting. Like a gleam 
of comfort came the thought, “ She says 
she does not fear what is coming soon to 


50 


TIIE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


her — that 4 death is the portico of her 
Father’s house;’ that she will be only a 
minute out of life’s sunshine as she passes 
under the shadow. I would have her with 
me.” 

“ I would not sit up late, dear,” whispered 
her mother to her ; and, glad to be excused, 
Ruth went soberly to her own room. 

One could have told in a second which 
of the two front chambers was Ruth’s and 
which Madge’s. In Ruth’s everything was 
orderly, spotless and, as far as she could 
make it, tasteful. To-night, as she looked 
about the place, it seemed so cozy, so home- 
like, her eyes filled with tears. She did not 
actually fear to die, for Ruth was a true 
Christian and knew whom she had believed, 
but life was so fair, so sweet, to her. 

An hour later, when Mrs. Preston had 
seen her guests made comfortable for the 
night, she stopped to see if all was right 
with Ruth, and found her very wide awake. 

“ This will never do,” said her mother ; 
“ I shall have to send you to bed ‘ with the 
chickens ’if you need so much preparation 
for sleep.” 


A MORNING WITH GRANDMA. 


51 


“ What did Dr. Hickox think ailed me, 
mother ?” asked Ruth, with a tremor in her 
voice that suggested much of the truth to 
the loving listener. 

“ He said what delighted us,” returned 
her mother, brightly. “ Your father was 
more worried about you than I knew ; he 
confessed this after he found his fears were 
groundless. The doctor says you have no 
disease whatever, and only need good care 
and proper precautions to be as well as you 
ever were, or better.” 

“ I am glad. I — I thought perhaps I 
was going to die,” confessed Ruth, a little 
hysterically. 

“ And were you afraid ?” 

Ruth waited, and her mother sat in silence 
by the bed for a moment or more ; then the 
young girl replied : 

“ I am not afraid of anything when I re- 
member all the promises of the Bible and 
think what heaven must be, but I am so 
happy with you on earth.” 

“And I hope that the good God will 
leave us together for many years. Now 
go to sleep. Here is a lovely verse of a 


52 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


German hymn on your calendar for this 
day ; take it as a good-niglit message, 
Ruth and, rising, her mother read from 
the tablets on the door : 

“‘Why shouldst tliou feel with sorrow 
About to-morrow, 

My heart? 

One watches all with care most true; 

Doubt not that He will give thee, too, 

Thy part.’” 


CHAPTER III. 

ABBEY’S “’VERSATION.” 

“ The Spaniard of whom Southey tells that he put on mag- 
nifying-glasses when he ate cherries to make them larger had 
the true philosophy of happiness.” 

A FEW days after the evening mentioned, 
Mrs. Preston found her husband for a 
half hour alone, and exclaimed, 

“ This is just the chance to talk with you 
that I have been looking for. What are 
we going to do about this Raynor boy?” 

“ What do you want to do about him ?” 

“ Just to let him alone with half a State 
between us. But what reason can we give 
for refusing him a home?” 

“ What is your reason ?” 

“ Not one pleasant to tell his parents. 
He made himself a nuisance when he vis- 
ited us before. The neighbors detested him ; 
grandma winces even now when his name is 
spoken.” 


53 


54 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“He was a mere cub at that time; now 
he is too old for such capers as he then in- 
dulged in.” 

“ Perhaps. But, aside from the fact that 
they wish it and I would like to oblige his 
father and mother, why should we take him 
in ? Our family is not very small as it is,” 
said Mrs. Preston. 

Her husband looked thoughtfully into 
space a while before he replied : 

“ We might do the boy good if he is a 
rattle-brained fellow, as I imagine he may 
be.” 

“Yes, and he might do our boy great 
harm.” 

“ Very true ; and I must confess the chief 
motive that would influence me is a more 
selfish one.” 

“ What do you mean ?” asked his wife. 

“ J ohn Raynor is a very prosperous busi- 
ness-man, you know, and he remarked yes- 
terday that if we took Bert into our family 
he should expect to pay a very liberal sum 
for his board and teaching. He made me 
understand delicately that he did not think 
money could pay for such a home and Chris- 


ABBEY >S “ ’ VERSA TION.” 55 

tian influences as the boy would have in 
coming here. Now, you know, my salary 
gets us comforts, but not many luxuries; 
and when, last night, Dr. Hickox said Ruth 
ought to go next summer to the seaside or 
the mountains, I did not see how that could 
be accomplished. Bert’s board-money might 
make such a trip feasible.” 

“ Let him come, then, by all means,” cried 
Mrs. Preston ; “ for I racked my brains un- 
til after midnight last night wondering how 
we ever could spare money to send Ruth 
away. She could not go anywhere alone, 
and that increased the difficulty. Now we 
may be able to save enough to have you go 
with her.” 

“ No, indeed ! You would be the one 
to go,” returned the Professor.” 

*“ Well, we won’t pack our trunks to-day,” 
laughed his wife as she hurried to the kitch- 
en to help Abbey with the dinner. 

Meanwhile, up in Madge’s room there was 
a sewing-society in progress. It consisted 
of three members, who sewed fast and talked 
faster. In the middle of the floor sat Madge 
diving into a big “ piece-bag ” full of odds 


56 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


and ends of woolen and silk. Cousin Jane 
had expressed a wish for a nice little pin- 
cushion to carry in her trunk to Europe, 
and they had discovered that she ought to 
have a button-bag, a case for toilet-articles, 
a pair of soft slippers to wear in her steamer- 
berth, and half a dozen other articles such 
as girls delight to make, and which they 
value more than costlier ones that they 
might purchase. 

“ Now, Cousin Jane, I am going to make 
you a charming little pin-roll to carry in 
your pocket,” said Madge. “ Only think ! 
some day you may tear your dress on 
Shakespeare’s tomb, and out will come my 
handiwork there in Westminster Abbey, 
and — 

“ Why, Madge Preston !” exclaimed Ruth. 
“ Shakespeare is not buried in Westminster, 
and nobody could tear a dress on his tomb 
in Avon if she tried. A fiat stone marks 
it.” 

“ Well, all the same, I wish I could put 
myself into this ball like a pin and go to 
Europe too. Oh dear ! how dreadfully 
monotonous life is to some people! Can 


ABBEY'S “’VERSAT10N” 57 

you believe that I never yet have been 
more than a hundred miles from home ?” 

“I never traveled much when I was 
a girl,” said Cousin Jane, holding some 
wool for Ruth to wind. 

“ Tell us about your trip, please. Where 
are you going first?” 

“ Oh, zigzagging about England and Scot- 
land for a while ; then on to the Continent. 
Yes, I wish you two girls could go with me ; 
it would give you enough to think of all 
your life, and it would be so pleasant for 
me to have some one besides a man. John 
is an excellent traveling companion, but he 
does not enjoy everything that we would 
like.” 

“Oh dear!” sighed Madge again. “Only 
to imagine the fun of it, and then to con- 
trast it with trudging through the mud 
every day down to hours of dry mathe- 
matics ! — I don’t suppose, Ruth, that we 
can ever travel anywhere, do you ? When 
the last year ended and father’s salary was 
paid and spent, he had just seventeen dollars 
left, he said.” 

“Seventeen dollars, no debts and innu- 


58 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


merable blessings ; that was wliat he said, 
I remember,” added Ruth. 

“ There! this crimson flannel will line 
the slippers and be soft to your feet, Cousin 
Jane,” exclaimed Madge, putting her head 
way into the bag and coming out with her 
curls in disorder while she rattled on. 
“ Sometimes it seems just mean to think 
we are held in so tight — all of us. Here 
is father, an awfully learned man — ” 

“ Oh, Madge !” 

“ Well, very learned, then. — And mother 
good as any Catholic saint, or better. I 
think they ought to be beyond the necessity 
of fussing to make sixpences buy shillings’ 
worth.” 

Now, Ruth did not like to have their 
domestic affairs talked about in this free 
fashion, and she began herself to talk more 
than usual of other things. 

“ I feel as if I had traveled,” she remarked, 
“for last winter we took a trip. That is, 
mother and I took it : Madge never was 
on time. We first studied atlases, you know, 
and marked out a route to every fascinating 
place we would like to visit, and then we 


ABBEY’S “’VERSATION: 


59 


started. We landed at Liverpool, and went 
to Chester. One lovely morning we walked 
around the old Roman walls and took lunch 
in the Yacht Inn, where Dean Swift once 
asked the clergy of Chester to supper, and 
when they refused to come he wrote a satire 
on the parlor- window pane with his diamond 
ring. You look, Cousin Jane, and see if it 
is legible. We took a day in the cathedral, 
and then went on to Warwick Castle. We 
never were tired, we had no fees to pay, and 
did not bother about railroads.” 

“Yes, you would be surprised to know 
how much history and literature I failed to 
learn by coasting on the hill with Johnny. 
I ought to be ashamed, and I am,” remarked 
Madge, humming a lively air in spite of 
her humiliation. 

“ Well, I am free to confess that I do not 
know much about the places or the things 
I am to see. I must learn as I go,” was 
Mrs. Raynors calm statement. 

At that moment the dinner-bell rang, and 
the society adjourned. 

That evening Mr. Raynor said to his 
wife, 


60 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“You will be glad to know, Jane, that 
the Professor has given me his decision at 
last in regard to Bert.” 

“ They won’t take him, I presume ?” inter- 
rupted his wife, a little sharply. 

“ Why do you presume that ?” 

“ Oh, I began to feel it in the air, even 
while I talked, that the idea did not strike 
them favorably.” 

“I believe you are right as far as that 
goes — they are too honest not to be a little 
transparent — but they have consented to 
take Bert for the entire time of our 
absence.” 

“ Oh, I am so glad ! But why did they 
hesitate, and why consent?” 

“ They demurred because Bert acted like 
a wild Indian when he was here before ; they 
take him now, I imagine, because the Pro- 
fessor’s salary is small and his expenses are 
not.” 

“ Yes, that agrees with some speeches 
which Madge made this morning. She is 
a wide-awake little creature.” 

And now it may be as well to report what 


ABBEY'S “ ’ VERSA TION.’ 


61 


passed between Uncle Henry and Abbey as 
they sat together that same evening in the 
dining-room. A great deal of quiet amuse- 
ment was afforded the young people by what 
Abbey called her conversations with Uncle 
Henry. No one else ever ventured to tell 
him anything and everything pertaining 
to the family interests, because the rest 
feared to bore him ; but Abbey, from the 
first day that he entered their house, as 
Madge said, “ marked him for her own ” in 
the sense of some one to do for. She cooked 
him just wliat he liked just as he liked it, 
and she found out preferences that the others 
did not discover. She insisted that there 
were times when he liked to “ converse ,' ” 
and that she knew when to hold her peace 
and when to talk. Accordingly, she put 
him into possession of many facts and 
frequent original reflections on these facts. 
Sometimes he said, “ Humph !” once or 
twice, at long intervals, asked, “Who?’ 
or “ What?” not seldom he went to bed just 
as Abbey was coming to the climax of a 
story; but the oddest part of the perform- 
ance was that Abbey would serenely inter- 


62 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


pret Uncle Henry’s sentiments to the family 
after one of these interviews, telling them 
what he thought, liked, approved and dis- 
approved of, and, while she frankly admitted 
that he did not “ talk much,” she always 
professed to understand him without words. 
When Johnny expounded to her the theory 
that it took two persons, at least, to converse, 
she said they had ’versations, then ; and ever 
after Abbey’s “ ’versations ” were the chil- 
dren’s fun. 

Uncle Henry had paused in reading a min- 
ing report, and was gazing into the open 
front of the coal-stove, when Abbey spoke. 

“ I didn’t s’pose that Johnny knew what 
he was talking about when he said the 
Raynor fellow was coming, but he is as sure 
as tribulation and disaster. I’d got all 
ready to beg and beseech grandma to pray 
him off on somebody else — for it seems as 
if that old lady’s prayers always some way 
were answered — when I saw it couldn’t be 
done ; for, you see, there is such a good rea- 
son why he had better come.” 

Uncle Henry was the picture of indiffer- 
ence as Abbey continued : 


ABBEY’S “’VERSATION” 63 

“You see, Ruth must have a change when 
the weather gets warmer; the doctor told 
Mr. Preston she must, for her father was 
mightily stirred up for fear she might be 
going into a decline. Now, unless some- 
thing like good pay for this pestiferous boy’s 
keeping allowed them a margin for extras, 
I don’t s’pose they could afford summer 
trips.” 

“ What is ‘ pestiferous ’ ?” 

A question of three words from Uncle 
Henry, even if it showed inattention to all 
that had gone before, was like an inspiration 
to Abbey. 

“Bert is pestiferous. Why, you were 
here yourself once when he spoiled all my 
nice kitchen wall-paper — yellow, it was, with 
pink thistles all over it. I papered that 
room myself. I had gone to prayer-meet- 
ing that night, and so had all the older ones 
but grandma. She was in her own room 
and Ruth with her. Madge and Bert, who 
had been to the woods, got home late, and 
found their supper left on a side-table in 
the kitchen. While they were eating it 
they got to discussing about churches, and 


64 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Madge happened to say the folks had gone 
to church that night. Bert said they hadn’t, 
they had only gone to 4 meetin’-house ;’ that 
Presbyterians couldn’t say they had a church, 
only Episcopals could. (The Baynors are 
Episcopals.) My ! didn’t that fire up Madge ! 
She said Episcopals were most like Roman 
Catholics and never made any prayers for 
themselves, because they weren’t taught how ; 
and Bert he said everybody knew Presbyte- 
rians had ‘ blue skins.’ Now, you’d have 
supposed Madge would have pointed him 
right to her whole family’s complexions and 
been satisfied ; but no, sir : them little nine- 
and ten-year-old creatures went at it fight- 
in’ like little roosters over theology and 
whose church was best. Madge, who never 
would tell a lie, confessed afterward that she 
scratched him, and bit too; and Bert — 
Well, I’ll say that for him : he wouldn’t fight 
a small girl, but he was just as mad ! and so 
he seized the teapot, that I had left on the 
back of the stove: sometimes the Professor 
liked a little tea in the evening. Bert seized 
that, poured out the whole contents and went 
to firing the soaked tea-grounds at her. If 


ABBEY’S “’VERSATIONJ 


65 


you had seen the walls and the ceiling, you 
would have thought that little copper-bot- 
tomed teapot must have held a gallon and 
all grounds. Right in the middle of the 
discussion Grandma Grey came to see what 
could be the matter; and when she found 
out, she set them down in two of my kitch- 
en-chairs — pretty-looking bipeds they were 
too — and she talked. I got home just in 
time to hear her, and I never’ll forget to 
the day of my death what she said. You 
couldn’t have told, if you had not known 
before, whether she was herself a Presbyte- 
rian or a ’Piscopal, but you would have found 
out what a Christian was. She told about 
the great army of men, women and children 
lovin’ their Saviour and tryin’ to serve him, 
some in one division, some in another. She 
said if they were in earnest they loved every 
honest member of every part of the true 
Christian army, and loved our Lord so that 
they grew gentle and Christlike. If they 
were ignorant and out of place in his army, 
they quarreled and fought and hated one an- 
other. I myself was taken all aback first by 
those nasty dabs of tea-grounds splashed all 

5 


66 


THE PR OF ESS OR ’S GIRLS. 


over walls and window-panes, and I was only 
waiting to settle matters with that Bert my- 
self ; but before grandma got done and was 
quotin’, ‘ My little children, let us not love 
in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and 
in truth,’ I was ready to forgive these scamps, 
especially as Bert was swallowing lumps in 
his throat and Madge cried right out that 
she was sorry and went to cleaning off the 
spots she had made on the little Episcopal’s 
clothes when she flung the fistfuls of tea- 
grounds back. Oh dear ! where did I start ?” 

Probably Uncle Henry had not the least 
idea. He went on reading for a while, then 
he put down his book, saying, 

“ Buth is too white.” 

Started on that line, Abbey waxed elo- 
quent. She loved every one of the family 
as if each had been her own flesh and blood, 
but her regard for Buth was unique. If 
Grandma Grey was in Abbey’s eyes the 
best woman on earth, Buth was to her a 
little rarer and finer than any other young 
girl. She could perceive that merry Madge 
had faults — could even, under much provo- 
cation, tell her of them ; but the younger 


ABBEY’S u ’VERSATION: 


67 


sister’s opinions were laws to Abbey, who 
considered her good and learned and beau- 
tiful. She might not have been able to give 
a better reason for her judgment than her 
declaration to Uncle Henry that “ Ruth 
never came down to breakfast in her life 
that she did not say 4 Good-morning ’ to 
me.” To-night she told of the young girl 
having to leave school and all details that 
no one had thought it wise to weary Uncle 
Henry in narrating. While the tide of her 
talk was running rapidly on, he all at once 
aroused himself and asked, 

“ Where did you come from ?” 

“ Why, I have been here all the evening, 
sir,” she exclaimed, her great eyes more 
prominent than usual in her surprise. 

“ I know. But you are not related to 
the family?” 

“ Oh no ! I was a nankeen orphan.” 
Then, seeing her companion stare, she ex- 
plained: “We all wore nankeen uniforms 
in the asylum. I was too homely to be 
chosen for adoption, so I crawled through 
a hole in the fence and gave myself away. 
I believe now the Lord meant me to get 


68 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS 


just where I am, and that makes me thank- 
ful. When people don’t feel that way, I 
suppose they are unhappy.” 

“ You are a good, industrious girl,” said 
Uncle Henry, starting for his room ; and 
Abbey felt as if some one had made her 
a handsome present. 

In a few days the Raynors went home, 
having arranged that their son should come 
to Hempstead about the first of June, a week 
or two after they had sailed. 


CHAPTER IY. 

SPRING. 

“ So fair the sky was, and so soft the air ! 

The happy birds were hurrying here and there 
As something soon would happen. Keddened now 
The hedges, and in gardens many a bough 
Was over-bold of buds. Sweet days indeed I” 

I T was now about two months since Ruth 
Preston ceased going to school and set 
herself to the task of regaining her full 
strength. She had faithfully obeyed her 
mother and her grandmother, had eaten 
and slept, walked, rode or rested, as they 
thought best ; yet the fact was evident that 
Ruth was not better. She could not go up 
stairs without sighing from weariness, she ate 
as daintily as a bird, stayed awake nights, 
and began to be a source of great uneasiness 
to the rest of the family. 

One beautiful morning, as Madge was 
rushing about her disordered little room in 

69 


70 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


spasmodic attempts to dress herself for 
school, to put the room to rights, to commit 
to memory a rule of algebra and to find a 
Rhetoric which she had mislaid, Ruth ap- 
peared and discovered this last under the 
bed. 

“ Oh dear, Ruth ! I wish you would get 
well ; things are just dreadful in school with- 
out you. Miss Elder liked you, and treated 
me better when you were there ; now she is 
as cross as a bear and as unreasonable as — 
Oh, beyond comparison.” 

“ I wish I could be there.” 

“ Oh, how can you ? I would change 
with you in a minute. Just see! Here 
you are in that pretty easy wrapper after 
coming down to a nice late breakfast, and 
you can read or play all day long. You 
are to be envied, Ruth Preston.” 

“ Didn’t you jump up singing this very 
morning, Madge, with your head clear and 
feeling rested enough for anything ?” 

“ Of course ; that goes without saying.” 

“ Not with me nowadays, for my head 
feels just as the head of that old doll Ara- 
bella Sophonisba used to look. It loped 


SPRING. 


71 


this way and that on her flabby old cotton 
neck, you remember.’’ 

Madge laughed, then groaned at the sight 
of a hole torn in her upper skirt, then 
exclaimed, 

“ Well, I dread to-day. Miss Elder is 
getting exasperated at me, and she is unjust 
and partial. I do not have my lessons as 
well as when we studied together, and so 
many ridiculous things occur to make me 
laugh. Besides, if any of the other girls 
disturb her, she always glances at me as if 
I must be the ‘ instigation of it/ as Abbey 
says.” 

“Madge, you will be late to school,” 
called her mother. “ Your father went 
five minutes ago.” 

Madge rushed about a little more excited- 
ly, and, seizing her gloves and hat, hurried 
away chattering and grumbling. Buth 
went softly around her room when she had 
gone, picking up ribbons, shoes, handker- 
chiefs and papers, making everything tidy. 
Wearied even by this light work, she had 
seated herself in a little rocking-chair when 
her mother entered. 


72 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Madge is not getting on well in school, 
is she, Ruth?” 

“ Well, she does not seem to enjoy it.” \ 

“ Your father had a long talk with me 
about her last night,” said Mrs. Preston, who 
often gave Ruth her confidence, as if she 
had been a sister instead of her youngest 
daughter. “ He says she is continually in 
trouble with Miss Elder.” 

“ I did not think that Madge was always 
as much to blame as Miss Elder used to sup- 
pose she was ; they dislike one another, and 
that began the trouble. Miss Elder does 
have favorites, and she shows great partial- 
ity ; and, while she herself knows what she 
teaches, I don’t think she is a good teacher.” 

“Your father is very far from satisfied 
with her, but he cannot bear to make the 
least effort to remove her, for he pities her. 
Her salary is not large, and she has nothing 
besides it to depend on ; she is not healthy, 
and is irritable. If his department of boys 
were not so entirely distinct from her charge, 
he might make matters go smoother; as it 
is, he cannot. But I am satisfied that Madge 
is not learning as she ought to learn.” 


SPUING. 


73 


“ There are things that discourage her that 
father does not know of — I mean in the way 
that the school-recitations are conducted. He 
never lets us tell tales, and I do not want to 
do it ; but the standard of honor is higher 
in his department than it is among the 
girls.” 

“No; he says no one must say that he 
keeps his children in the school for spies — 
that they must do right and reflect credit 
on him. I fear Madge is not doing this 
last.” 

“The term is half gone; perhaps things 
will be better after vacation,” said Ruth. 

Now, it happened that this day was a pe- 
culiarly trying one to Madge. The Hemp- 
stead Academy, of which Professor Preston 
was the principal, was an old institution, 
rather poor and in many ways behind the 
age. The power of the Professor was lim- 
ited in a manner exceedingly vexatious to a 
man of his ability and high ideas of excel- 
lence, but the trustees were men of a differ- 
ent stamp. Every day he became more and 
more dissatisfied with affairs in Miss Elder’s 
department, but that lady had the favor of 


74 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


the trustees. She wanted fewer improve- 
ments, was satisfied with the old text-books, 
the ancient apparatus for experiments, and 
had no theories about education. 

Professor Preston had invariably treated 
Miss Elder with the utmost courtesy, up- 
holding her authority on all occasions, and, 
saving her from overwork, had just as fre- 
quently striven to cover up grave failures 
on her part. Perhaps because she felt her 
obligations to him and had not magnanim- 
ity enough to be grateful, she was instead 
only jealous, suspicious and constantly on 
the lookout for offences. Now, Madge Pres- 
ton gave her continual cause for complaint, 
and she was far from patient toward Madge. 

This day was Monday. Madge had not 
studied very diligently on Saturday, and so 
she went to school very poorly prepared for 
its duties. In mathematics she was, as usual, 
rather stupid ; then came the recitation in 
rhetoric, which she sometimes enjoyed. 

Miss Elder sat on the raised platform at 
one end of the plain old schoolroom. Just 
below her was a row of benches where the 
younger scholars sat when they recited ; be- 


SPRING. 


75 


hind these was a piano, then a bench on 
which the young ladies of the school pre- 
ferred to sit while reciting. It is not un- 
likely that Miss Elder saw fit to be igno- 
rant of the use that piano served. Her 
classes were not at all well drilled, and her 
pupils felt no enthusiasm in their studies; 
but repeatedly, when visitors or trustees had 
been seated with her on the “ rostrum,” as 
her platform was called, these same pupils, 
behind the piano, had given exceedingly 
fluent recitations. This day the ten young 
ladies of the class gathered as usual, smiling 
and prepared, with thumbs in the books in 
their laps — that is, six of them were thus 
prepared. 

The lesson began. Mary Parker, who 
always sat in plain view of her teacher and 
without a book, recited, as usual, well. Next 
to her came little Belle Hughes, equally hon- 
est, but not as thorough a student, then the 
screened pupils. These last answered every 
question put to them glibly and in the pre- 
cise words of the text ; then out from shelter 
of the piano at the other end of the class 
came Madge Preston, whose wits seemed all 


76 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


wool-gathering. She could not tell what a 
“ metonymy ” was, could not give an exam- 
ple of one, calmly insisted, when questioned 
the next time, that she was not able to de- 
fine “synecdoche,” although Sarah Locke, 
with her eyes downcast, was whispering, 
“ Figure — where — name of part denotes — 
whole or the other way.” 

So eager was Sarah to serve her that Miss 
Elder must have seen the whole or heard it, 
but, only angry at Madge, she insisted on 
knowing why she had not learned her les- 
son. Madge’s honesty in saying that she 
had not studied it enough sounded a little 
impertinent, and Miss Elder gave her a lect- 
ure more severe than she had ever before 
bestowed on her. Conscious that she de- 
served it, Madge might have taken it all 
meekly if, angry beyond control, Miss Elder 
had not insinuated that because she had 
“ friends in authority ” she dared to “ defy 
law and order in this department” of the 
school. The reference to her father enraged 
Madge beyond bounds, and she retorted that 
“ law and authority were founded on justice 
and honesty in the other department.” 


SPRING . 


77 


Miss Elder’s face was livid with wrath 
as she exclaimed, 

“ Miss Preston, you can be excused at 
once from another hour’s attendance in any 
class of mine. I shall report your insulting 
remarks to your father, and he may deal 
with you as he sees fit.” 

Madge, with her head very high, walked 
to her desk, took out a pile of books, and, 
with just a trifle too much coolness not to be 
aggravating, sauntered down and out of the 
schoolroom feeling quite heroic. When she 
was really out in the quiet street, with her 
flushed face turned homeward, she began to 
ask herself what she had to feel heroic over, 
and what effect her statement of affairs might 
have on her family. Halfway between the 
academy and her home there was an old 
park where a few children played under the 
trees, and where one could sit undisturbed by 
outsiders. Here, under a great maple tree, 
Madge flung down her books and stopped to 
think the matter over coolly. She must go 
home and report that she had gone to her 
classes with lessons not even half learned, be- 
cause she had spent all her time Saturday in 


78 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


visiting school-friends, in making herself a 
red merino sacque, in boiling molasses-candy 
with Johnny and wishing she could go to 
Europe as Cousin Jane was going. She 
had no better reasons for neglecting her 
duty, and so could give no excuse to her 
teacher. Miss Elder had reprimanded her 
severely ; her mother would say she deserved 
reproof, and she admitted to herself that this 
was true ; but the insinuation that she could 
neglect her duty with impunity because her 
father was the principal — that Madge assured 
herself was outrageous ; hut she did dare to 
waste her time and provoke her teacher, and, 
this being true, Miss Elder may have believed 
what she said. By this time Madge’s retort 
began to look a little less commendable in her 
own eyes. When asked by her father, or by 
any one else, what she had meant, she must tell 
tales of her schoolmates — of how they looked 
in their books — and she must either accuse 
Miss Elder of conniving at their deceit or she 
must be silent and seem to have meant noth- 
ing but purest impertinence. She hated to 
be a telltale. The girls were not really so 
very deceitful ; they said they only “ peeped 


SPRING. 


79 


for fun ” or to “ refresh their memories,” and 
that Miss Elder “ knew it and did not care.’’ 
Again Madge reflected that her father would 
be very sorry to have trouble made for the 
teacher by one of his own family. Oh dear ! 
what a miserable affair ! It all came because 
she had failed to do her own duty and to 
mind her own business. Until she herself 
was freer from faults, how much better it 
would have been to have left the failings 
of her teacher and her schoolmates alone ! 
Looking at it all from Miss Elder’s point 
of view, she had insulted that lady. 

“ Oh dear !” she exclaimed, in self-disgust ; 
“ I wish there was no horrid old academy. 
I wish Kuth had kept well and I had been 
the one to be ill. Ruth never gets into such 
awful muddles, and I would be perfectly 
happy to stay around and amuse myself at 
home. I am so sick of this stupid life ! 
Cousin Jane says I seem ‘ like a little girl ’ to 
her ; that is because I have no style. Girls 
of my age in cities go in society and have a 
chance to see the world ; we never go any- 
where unless it is to a tea-party with mother 
or a visit with the schoolgirls and their 


80 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


brothers. I do not see how Ruth can say 
she likes it all and thinks it is just as it 
ought to be. But I must stand it, and now, 
to cap all, here is this fuss at the academy.” 

Yes, no discontent over life in general 
could keep out of Madge’s mind the thought 
that she had made possible trouble for her 
father. Miss Elder would believe that he 
had reflected on her management — that he 
had previously censured her. 

The April sun shone warm out of a blue 
and cloudless sky. The trees above Madge 
were covered with tender green buds, the 
grass was like velvet under her feet, and at 
any other time she would have heard the bird- 
songs all about her, and would have been as 
gay as the children who raced up and down 
the broad central walk. As it was, she finally 
picked up her books and walked on, “ blue,” 
cross, wishing in her thoughtless fashion that 
“ this year was past and done with.” 

She entered the dining-room by a side- 
door, and there found Ruth and Abbey. 
Ruth was making a white-lace cap for 
Grandma Grey and singing as she worked, 
while Abbey was cleaning the “ silver-clos- 


SPRING. 


81 


et,” as she chose to call the place where very 
little silver and more well-worn china were 
kept. Madge dropped her books heavily on 
the table, and, confronting Ruth, said, 

“ I went to school without my lessons. 
Miss Elder scolded. I did not care, and 
she knew it. She said I dared to defy law 
and order in her department because I had 
4 friends in authority.’ She meant father. 
I would not stand that. I told her 4 that 
law and order were founded on justice and 
honesty in the other department.’ Then she 
would not endure that from me. She told 
me to take my books and go ; so here I am.” 
Seeing Ruth’s astonishment, she added , 44 She 
will make her statement to father before he 
comes home. I make this as mine then, 
suddenly bursting into tears, she fled up 
stairs and locked herself in her room. 

44 Well, now, if that isn’t just inhuman /” 
ejaculated Abbey, as usual instantly assum- 
ing that a Preston could do no harm. 44 Yes, 
and it is an insult to your par.” 

44 But I am afraid Madge was angry and 
insulted the teacher.” 

44 Well, it all comes from her being forced 


82 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


to learn such unnatural sciences as trigomol- 
igy and algometery and physics. Now, what 
on earth does she study anything like that 
for if she isn’t going to be a woman-doctor ? 
She could learn enough about medicine just 
by reading every other page of the House- 
hold Almanac , as I do. I declare for it, old 
Dr. Hickox he went away up in my estima- 
tion when he said ed dication was just a-killin’ 
you.” 

Abbey finished her diatribe merely for the 
comfort of expression, as Ruth had put down 
her work and gone to find her mother. Ruth 
was the right person to report a matter like 
this ; she would tell the absolute truth about 
all parties just as far as it came within her 
knowledge. From her Mrs. Preston learned 
everything necessary to an understanding of 
the case. 

When school was out that noon, Miss El- 
der, whose anger had waxed hotter and hot- 
ter, started to find Professor Preston before 
he should go home. In passing from one 
part of the building to the other she had 
to traverse a short hall connecting with a 
“ clothes-room ” where the girls hung their 


SPRING. 


83 


outer garments. Approaching this to-day, 
she heard earnest talking. 

“ I tell you what it is, girls,” Belle Hughes 
was saying : “ this thing has come to a pass 
when something ought to be done if there 
is any honor left among us.” 

“Oh, pshaw, Belle!” exclaimed Sarah 
Locke. “ Miss Elder is not deceived one 
bit ; so what is the harm ? She must know 
we look in the book, and to-day I told Madge 
Preston her answer, and I was so excited 
that I whispered very loud. I know Miss 
Elder heard me, but I had brought her a 
lovely bouquet of the earliest flowers out, 
and she couldn’t be ungracious enough to 
catch me in a caper like that.” 

“She ought to have done it,” remarked 
Mary Parker. “ The whole thing is un- 
just, and I am not sorry, on the whole, that 
Madge dared to throw in her firebrand. 
You know, Kate Howard — and you, Alice, 
and you, Helen Wells — that you read every 
correct answer that you gave this morning 
out of the books in your hands. Alice told 
me that she did not even know where the 
lesson was until I told her as the class-bell 


84 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


rang. Now, Madge had studied it, and yet 
she had to suffer for her refusal to cheat, 
while — ” 

“ Cheat is an ugly word,” cried Helen 
Wells. 

“It is the word for us if we pretend to 
have a perfect lesson when we have none.” 

“ It is not the word for you,” said Helen 
Wells, frankly. 

“ Well, I am the daughter of a trustee, 
and for the same reason that Madge, who is 
the principal’s daughter, tells no tales out 
of school, I have held my peace; but my 
mind is made up, girls, and I want your 
co-operation. I don’t think that piano looks 
well where it is now ; I am going to ask 
to have it removed to the south end of the 
room.” 

A titter ran around the group of girls, 
and was followed by a faint groan. 

“ If that is not enough, I shall propose to 
Miss Elder that all text-books be left in our 
desks during recitation,” added Mary, with 
perfect good-nature, but firmly. 

Alice Miller, who had considerable hu- 
mor, dryly remarked, 


SPEING. 


85 


“I was reading yesterday of a certain 
warrior who gave his victims the choice 
between having their heads chopped off 
or being baptized : they were all converted 
to his opinions in the next quarter of an 
hour. Young ladies, I think that your 
conduct has been very reprehensible;” and 
Alice turned on her comrades with a sol- 
emn grimace which was received with laugh- 
ter. 

Only Kate Howard remained sulky. She 
said, 

“ After all, it is as much Miss Elder’s par- 
tiality as it is our deceit ; she does not care 
so we only appear to know.” 

“I do not uphold Miss Elder,” replied 
the trustee’s daughter ; “ but, leaving her 
out of the question, Kate, I can’t bear to 
see you cheat yourself so out of the educa- 
tion that your mother is so anxious to give 
you.” 

Mary was speaking in a low voice now, 
and to Kate alone; but they were nearing 
the passage-way where Miss Elder had 
paused, and she hastily escaped. A little 
of her eagerness to see Professor Preston 


86 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


disappeared under the influence of the con- 
versation which she had just overheard, and 
she came to the conclusion not to be precipi- 
tate. Returning to her desk, she wrote a 
note to Madge, sending it to her later by a 
little girl who lived near the Prestons. It 
was a very calm epistle and quite creditable 
to its author, who wrote in a dignified but 
kindly way to the wrong-doer, offering a 
restoration to favor under certain condi- 
tions. She told Madge that her own good 
sense must tell her that she had been guilty 
of great rudeness. She added that it pained 
her to take the matter to Madge’s father, and 
therefore, if she would make some suitable 
apology for her offence, it should be passed 
over. 

From her knowledge of schoolgirls in gen- 
eral, Miss Elder argued that Madge would 
gladly keep her school-affairs from her pa- 
rents. 

So it came to pass that the Professor ar- 
rived home as serene as the spring sunshine, 
and it was Mrs. Preston who unfolded the 
situation to him after he had eaten his 
dinner. 


SPRING . 


87 


Daring their talk little Nelly Lenox came 
with the teacher’s note, and Professor Pres- 
ton himself carried it up to Madge. She 
received him with red eyes, curls in wild 
confusion and the air of one weary of ex- 
istence. When she had told her story — a 
very brief one — he said gravely, 

“ I wish you to return to school to-mor- 
row morning; you cannot go back without 
making the apology Miss Elder has a right 
to demand. Was she unjust in expecting 
you to have good lessons?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Have you studied as you ought to study 
since Ruth left the school ?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Have you any good excuse for your idle- 
ness ?” 

“No, father; I don’t suppose I have, 
only — Well, Ruth is good and studious, 
yet she knows how dull and uninteresting 
the classes are, and how — some — things go 
all wrong.” 

“And I know much more than I talk of 
to any one, and certainly more than you 
know ; but that is not the point. The man- 


88 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


agement of the school is not in your hands, 
nor is it by any means wholly in mine. This 
is the question : Have you been doing your 
duty this term?” 

• “ No, I do not suppose I have,” confessed 
Madge. 

“ Very well, then ; nothing else concerns 
you until you have done it,” said her father, 
going down stairs. 

Madge had fancied that her father would 
be very angry and quite out of patience with 
her, and she had worked herself into the 
belief that she was misunderstood, almost 
abused, and more than anything else a kind 
of martyr suffering on account of her supe- 
rior integrity of character. After her father 
had gone down stairs she began to realize 
that she was not exactly suffering in “ well- 
doing ;” so this time she cried half an hour 
from another cause. 

“ Madge,” said her mother, looking in at 
the door, “ I want you to get off the bed, 
wash your face and come down stairs and 
eat your dinner.” 

Madge obeyed, feeling more like a child 
of twelve than the young person who was 


SPBINO. 


89 


longing for “ society ” a few hours previous. 
After her dinner she spent the afternoon 
with Ruth, who never lectured her in any 
circumstances, and never made her feel that 
she herself was better than Madge; but, 
all the same, Ruth did have a great influ- 
ence over her sister. They chatted together 
about the school, their girl-friends, the plans 
for vacation, and gradually Madge, as she 
talked, began to make a few good resolu- 
tions about her lessons and her conduct. 

Next morning Madge went back to the 
academy with the^ disposition of one who is 
about to swallow bitter medicine, and who is 
aware that it is needful to take it. She in- 
tended that her apology should be public, 
as her offensive remark had been ; but Miss 
Elder met her as she entered the hall, and, 
as it afterward seemed to Madge, that lady 
drew from her an apology then and there, 
doing away with all occasion for it later. 
Really grateful for what looked like Miss 
Elder’s forbearance, Madge was herself too 
straightforward to think of any reason more 
unselfish for this sudden amiability, and it was 
well. Her good intentions were strengthened. 


90 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


That same morning, just before the day’s 
exercises opened, Mary Parker asked if 
the piano might not be moved to the end 
of the room, and gave no reason what- 
ever for her request. Miss Elder assured 
her that the change might be made at 
once if the older pupils wished it. The 
greater part were acquiescent, if not eager ; 
so the piano went. More studying was done 
that day in school than had been done for 
weeks before. The rhetoric class appeared 
to have some idea of what was being taught, 
although the words of the book were not 
used as fluently as usual. 

A few days later Professor Preston said to 
his wife that Miss Elder had never men- 
tioned the affair to him, but, instead, had 
taken pains to make several changes in her 
department which he had often advised her 
to make, hitherto without avail. 

“ I would not send Madge to your school 
another day,” laughed Mrs. Preston, “ if I 
had any choice of ways and means.” 

“ Neither would I,” assented her husband, 
“ but I do not know what I would do with 
her.” 


SPRING. 


91 


“ Then I have the advantage of you. 
I would send Madge to a very dear friend 
of mine — Mrs. Allen, of whom you have 
often heard me speak. She keeps a little 
private school in Millbridge, and I know 
her to be a devoted Christian, a perfect 
lady and finely educated. I would not 
like to let Madge go away from home, but 
I would trust her to my friend. Still, this 
is all talk ; she must do her duty where she 
is. Miss Elder may be faulty as a teacher, 
but that is no reason why Madge should 
neglect her lessons and waste her time/’ 


CHAPTER Y. 

HAPPENINGS. 

“ Oh, why and whither ? God knows all : 

I only know that he is good, 

And that, whatever may befall, 

Or here or there, must be the best that could.” 

I N the middle of April came a week so 
cold, so rainy and dismal that it seemed 
to have been a sort of misplaced win ter- week. 
In ordinary circumstances, Madge would 
have grumbled a good deal over her long 
walks to school, but, as she happened to 
have a severe cold, it was thought best that 
she should stay at home, and the necessity 
was very agreeable to her. She learned 
her lessons and recited them to Ruth ; then 
she found time to enjoy everything cheerful 
that went on in the family. 

One day she sat in the hall reading a new 
book by Miss Alcott. Ruth was nestled 
among the red sofa-cushions, also with a 

92 


HAPPENINGS. 


93 


book, but she was not reading: she was 
wondering why she did not get stronger 
after these weeks of quiet and rest. Sud- 
denly, Madge put down her story and ex- 
claimed, 

“ What do you suppose is the matter ?” 

“ The matter ? Where ?” 

“ Why, it was not quite ten o’clock when 
I heard Uncle Henry tell mother that he 
wanted to speak to her. She followed him 
into the parlor, where Johnny had just made 
a fire — because Mary Parker and Belle 
Hughes are coming this afternoon to see us, 
you know — and pretty soon she called father, 
and they have talked low and fast every mo- 
ment since. Here it is almost noon. Oddest 
of all, Uncle Henry has talked. There, now ! 
don’t you hear his low, heavy voice every 
once in a while? What can it mean?” 

“ Why, it is queer,” replied Ruth, with 
almost equal curiosity. “ But mother will 
tell us if it is anything we ought to know.” 

“ Well, I hope she will.” 

Ruth took up the book her sister had laid 
down, and, finding it interesting, soon forgot 
everything beyond it. Madge not long after 


94 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


heard her father, who was speaking rather 
loud, arise from his chair to walk up and 
down the next room. Then she heard the 
Raynors’ name and the word “ Europe,” 
but, as that family and the proposed trip 
were getting to be an old story, she paid no 
attention until she was startled by hearing 
her own name distinctly uttered by Uncle 
Henry. Then the voices were low again 
until her father spoke : 

“It would be ... to let the child go so 
far from us, but ... a wonderful opportunity. 

. . . Cousin Jane is very desirous . . .” 

Like a burst of light and joy it flashed 
on Madge that Cousin Jane had invited her 
to go to Europe. In her excitement she 
sprang to her feet and was about to cry out 
to Ruth, when she saw that the book had 
slipped from her sister’s hand and she her- 
self was fast asleep with her soft hair falling 
all about her sweet face. 

Why could not Ruth go too ? It would 
not be so pleasant without her. Was it 
because she was not well enough to travel 
that they had not asked her, or because it 
would cost so much to take two ? To go to 


HAPPENINGS . 


95 


Europe! Madge’s head fairly grew dizzy 
with delight at the realization of what that 
phrase might mean of excitement, pleasure 
and novelty. 

It was at that moment evident that the 
council in the parlor was about to break up, 
and Madge, afraid of betraying her agitation, 
turned and fled to her own room. Locking 
the door, she dropped into the nearest chair, 
and, clasping her hands in ecstasy, she fell 
to building gorgeous castles in Spain. What 
wonders she would see! What letters she 
would write the schoolgirls ! Poor creatures ! 
they would be prosing along in that stupid 
old academy while she was climbing the 
Alps or floating about among the palaces 
of Venice. Crazy with joy, Madge next 
danced on tip-toe about her narrow cham- 
ber, upsetting her work-box and tripping on 
“ Webster’s Unabridged,” that she had yes- 
terday used for a footstool, but she was 
heedless of everything except present excite- 
ment. When the dinner-bell rang, she 
spent some time trying to compose her mind 
and calm her manner, in case she should be 
regarded with any close scrutiny. She was 


96 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


relieved to find that no one even looked at 
her. Grandma Grey and Ruth were the 
only ones who talked very much. Pro- 
fessor Preston was lost in thought, and Mrs. 
Preston seemed to be nervous and preoc- 
cupied. 

After dinner Ruth expected that Madge 
would begin to catechise their mother, but, 
to her surprise, she did nothing but romp 
with Johnny and evince the highest spirits. 

Later in the afternoon Mrs. Preston opened 
the door of the room where they sat, and an- 
nounced : 

“ A little boy has just been here to say that 
your school-friends cannot come to spend the 
afternoon, as they expected to do. Mary 
Parker’s mother is ill, and Belle Hughes 
has company from out of town.” 

“I do not care very much,” said Madge; 
“ I am not in the mood for them to-day.” 

“ You are certainly not in a very melan- 
choly mood,” remarked her mother, looking 
at both girls in a serious way that each no- 
ticed and one thought she understood. 

“ Mother,” asked Ruth, playfully, “ what 
did you run away from us for this morning ? 


HAPPENINGS. 


97 


You ought not to have secrets from your big 
daughters.” 

“Well, if my big daughters will forgive 
me, I will not do so any more and I will 
confess all my naughtiness ; but I will take 
you one at a time, and will begin with Madge, 
because a superabundance of curiosity might 
injure her. I think Ruthie can control 
hers within bounds.” 

“ Yes, I can wait,” laughed Ruth, “ for I 
am getting so lazy lately that it is no effort 
to be passively good. I have not energy 
enough to get into mischief.” 

Mrs. Preston smoothed her soft hair with 
a lingering, affectionate touch, then, turning 
gravely to Madge, said, 

“ I want you in the parlor for a little 
while.” 

With her heart throbbing very fast, Madge 
hastened to the warm, quiet parlor. The 
rain was beating on the window-panes, but 
all within-doors was cozy. Mrs. Preston 
was silent after seating herself in the great 
haircloth easy-chair ; she seemed watching 
the glow of the firelight on grandma’s old 
velvet screens, and it sobered Madge to no- 
r 


98 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


tice how sad her eyes were. At last she 
said, 

“ I have something to tell you, Madge, that 
will surprise you very much. I tell you first 
because you are strong and able to bear any- 
thing which you are unprepared for, and you 
must remember that if you excite Ruth too 
much from any cause you will be very like- 
ly to weaken her.” 

“ Yes, mother,” said Madge, eagerly. 

“ You know, when Cousin Jane was here, 
she repeatedly said that she wished that one 
or both of you girls could go abroad with 
her ; but of course we paid no attention, for 
in the state of our finances the thing was as 
impracticable as a trip to the moon. It was 
just about that time, you remember, that 
Ruth began to get so weak, and since then 
it has troubled your father and me greatly 
that she does not get better. Ten days ago 
old Dr. Hickox said that she would improve 
if she could only get a start, but nothing 
we can do seems to give her that start. Un- 
cle Henry has from the first been very anx- 
ious about Ruth, although she has not seen 
it. He remembers, as does your father, the 


HAPPENINGS. 


99 


beautiful sisters whom they lost in their 
early days.” 

“ Why, mother, they died of consump- 
tion,” exclaimed Madge. “ You don’t even 
think for a moment that our Ruth has 
that ?” 

“ No, dear ; I am so thankful to believe 
she has not any real disease. But weakness 
like hers is the condition in which disease 
develops itself, and she must get back her 
strength.” 

Madge’s whole mind then was on her sis- 
ter, and she saw no relevancy in her moth- 
er’s next remark : 

“Now, Madge, you know how odd and 
reserved your uncle is, and, that being so, 
neither your father nor I have ever ven- 
tured to ask him many personal questions. 
We have always supposed that he had an 
income sufficient to keep him very comfort- 
able in a small way, and not much more. 
It seems, however, that in the last few years 
some property of his in the far West has 
become valuable, and he has made more 
money. He is not at all what would be 
called, even here in Hempstead, a rich man, 


100 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS . 


but be is able to do wliat he has proposed to 
us, and what will astonish you very much.” 

“ What is that?” cried Madge, quickly. 

“ He has offered to send Ruth to Europe 
with the Raynors.” 

The effect of her words was greater than 
Mrs. Preston had fancied it would be: Madge 
gasped in breathless surprise. 

“ Yes, he says that an ocean-voyage and 
an entire change might do wonders for her. 
Entirely on his own responsibility he wrote 
asking them about it, and the Raynors are 
very kind. They reply that they would 
gladly take her in any circumstances, but 
that now, in view of our promise to have 
Bert here, they feel that they cannot agree 
to do too much for Ruth’s comfort. They 
will give her every care and attention that 
they could give a daughter of their own.” 

“Oh, mother, couldn’t I go too? Have 
I got to stay home ?” burst from Madge as 
there rushed over her a sickening sense of 
disappointment. 

“ My dear child, do you think your father 
and I could see you both sail away from us?” 

“ I think Uncle Hejiry is mean and par- 


HAPPENINGS. 


101 


tial,” Madge exclaimed, angrily. “I don’t 
begrudge his money to Ruth — that is not 
it — but why can’t he let me go also?” 

“Now, don’t be unjust. Remember, 
Madge, that this is not purely for a pleas- 
ure-trip, although I hope it will be a real 
pleasure to Ruth. It is for her good that 
he does it, and this morning your uncle 
said to me, ‘ I shall spend an equal sum on 
Madge and Johnny hereafter. I may leave 
nothing behind me, but I hope to have 
enough to give Madge a better education 
than she seems to be getting, and perhaps 
give Johnny some help later.’” 

“More education!” groaned Madge, in 
such genuine dismay and disgust that her 
mother was tempted to laugh, but only en- 
deavored to soothe her. She knew how 
beautiful this trip in foreign lands must 
seem to the young girl — how dull might 
appear her life at home by contrast ; yet 
she also knew how warm and loving was 
Madge’s heart, and how unselfish her bet- 
ter nature. She begged her not to let Ruth 
see her disappointment ; for if she saw it, all 
pleasure would be gone for the sensitive sis- 


102 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


ter. The mother appealed to her generous 
instincts ; she told her how hard it was for 
her and for the father to trust their delicate 
young daughter so far away from their care. 
She talked until Madge’s reason was con- 
vinced that all was for the best; and if she 
felt very low , and very sorry for herself, she 
was at the same time sincerely glad for 
Ruth’s sake. When she promised to show 
this gladness only and to keep back her 
own disappointment, her mother knew that 
she could be trusted. 

“ Now I will go and tell Ruth all about 
it, I want to have her interested in all her 
preparations, as she naturally will be, but I 
do not want her to be over- tired or excited. 
She is not so venturesome as you are, and 
she will shrink a little from everything new, 
no matter how delightful it may prove.” 

Madge made no reply as her mother went 
out and left her to think about this sudden 
development of family matters. She was 
sitting on the rug before the fire, buried in 
thought, when, half an hour later, Grandma 
Grey came in to rest a while; or perhaps 
she came for another purpose. As she stood 



Disappointed Madge. 


Page 102. 


. 


























HAPPENINGS. 


103 


a, moment warming her withered hands she 
patted Madge’s head, saying, 

“ It will be very lonesome for you without 
Ruth, but you will be constantly thinking 
of the time when she will come back well 
and strong with wonderful stories of what 
she has seen and learned, and with pretty 
gifts for you. A voyage may do for her 
what nothing else could do. It is far bet- 
ter to miss the dear child for a few months 
than to have her slip away from us for ever ; 
and sometimes I have feared she might be 
going in this last way.” 

“ Yes, I am very glad for Ruth’s sake, 
and I mean to show her that I am ; but I 
wish something good would come to me. 
It seems as if I could not endure such a 
stupid, humdrum life another month. It 
is so queer that things happen as they do ! 
Ruth loved to go to school ; she likes every- 
thing that comes ; she never is tired or bored ; 
and yet the new, strange happenings all are 
for her.” 

“ Poor child !” said the old lady, tenderly ; 
“ I know how it all looks to you, but I wish 
you could know how it seems to me.” 


104 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ How, grandma ?” 

“ One day last summer, you remember, 
your father hired a carriage and took us for 
a ride along that beautiful high Bayridge 
road where you can see miles of country 
below you to the south. Well, the sky was 
as blue as blue could be right over us, and 
the sunshine very clear, butterflies dancing 
in it and birds singing. Now, while that 
was all so with me, I looked to the south, and 
there, over a pretty little hamlet miles away, 
hung a dark rain-cloud, shading everything 
under it and soon letting down a brisk 
shower. Your life, with its interests now, 
is like that little settlement, but I can see 
plenty of brightness above and around you.” 

“ Yes, but while the shower lasted eve- 
rything was dark and disagreeable, and in 
some places it rains very often/’ said Madge, 
dolefully. 

“ Yes ; some lives are constantly under a 
cloud. When I was your age, I thought as 
you think — that life was very dull; but 
something good did come to me.” 

“Tell me about it,” said Madge, with 
more interest. 


HAPPENINGS. 


105 


“ I had no mother, no sister — no one to 
make my father’s great gloomy mansion 
homelike. My father was a very quiet, 
stern man who never expressed any affec- 
tion for me. I had an aunt in Boston whose 
home was like yours — bright and cheerful. 
This aunt had almost gained my father’s 
consent to my spending with her the time 
after I was fifteen until I was of age, when 
suddenly he decided that I was to remain 
at home. I was terribly disappointed until 
I learned that I was to have a new mother 
who would bring two children of her own 
into our gloomy house. I had no prejudices 
against stepmothers, and I was simply de- 
lighted. I tried to arrange the rooms to suit 
the new-comers, and I fancied that we would 
have a home at last. Before my stepmother 
had been in the house a week I learned that 
the solemn quietness of the house in past 
times was preferable to the clamor and strife 
that came in with her and her children. She 
was jealous of me ; my father, who had never 
understood me, was easily made to believe 
that I was sullen when I was sad, or was 
obstinate when I made the least resistance 


106 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


to her will. Perhaps I think of this to-day 
because I too was disappointed in a trip to 
Europe. My mother’s relations were Eng- 
lish — an old family of Warwickshire. Now, 
when I was just about your age, my father, 
who was a shipowner, had business in Liv- 
erpool, and he would have taken me for a 
summer’s visit to these friends, whose home 
was very beautiful. Until a week before the 
ship sailed my stepmother let me think that 
I could go ; then, on some j)retext which I do 
not now remember, she convinced my father 
that I had better not go. I have not now 
forgotten, and never can forget, my bitter 
grief and my anger at her. You have been 
disappointed, Madge, but you have never 
had your sense of justice outraged.” 

“ I would not have endured it ; I would 
have rebelled and fought for my rights in 
my own father’s house,” exclaimed Madge, 
hotly. 

“ I did that, and it made more discord 
and more ill-feeling. At last I began to 
pray for help. I begged the Lord to send 
me a friend or to send me to friends, but 
none came, and nothing happened. Then 


HAPPENINGS. 


107 


I tried to be more gentle. Perhaps I failed ; 
at any rate, my stepmother wrote my father 
a long, full account of what she called all 
my evil deeds. I did not know this, and 
I looked forward to his return with great 
anticipations of welcoming him, and of the 
gifts he would be sure to bring us; for in 
that way he had always been very indulgent 
to me. Well, he came at last, and with him 
a big leather trunk. We gathered about it 
the morning after his arrival, and out came 
beautiful presents — dresses, fans, laces, jewels, 
for his wife ; then all sorts of trinkets for 
her two children, who were in raptures over 
them. I was almost as happy and excited, 
and I waited, thinking that mine were all 
together with those which my relations might 
have sent me. I had not a thought of the 
truth, even when my father had emptied 
that trunk, until he turned to me and said 
that after reading the accounts of my con- 
duct in his absence he had concluded that 
he could not more forcibly mark his dis- 
approval than to ignore me in the way he 
had done. He added that my English rel- 
atives had sent me a few gifts that would be 


108 THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 

given me when I better deserved them : 
I never saw any of these last. I can feel 
now, after more than half a century, some- 
thing of the grief and rage and disappoint- 
ment of that hour when I turned away from 
that room without a word and went up two 
long flights of stairs to a little chamber 
where no one ever sought me out. There 
I threw myself on the floor and wept and 
prayed God to let me die and go to my own 
mother. I think that I have never suffered 
so hopelessly in all the years since then. 
At last I fell asleep, worn out with crying. 
When I awakened, I felt so weary, so empty, 
that it seemed to me I could never go back 
to the miserable strife of every day. There 
was a pile of old battered books in a corner 
near me, and I reached out and opened one. 
Your father has a copy like it — this book of 
Archbishop Leighton, written two hundred 
years ago. At the place where I opened, it 
told how one must conquer the troubles of 
every day or be conquered by them ; 4 for 
a man may drown in a little brook as well 
as in a great river if his head be under 
water.’ I believed that, for was I not almost 


HAPPENINGS. 


109 


overwhelmed ? I read on where it told how 
one could take his weary, burdened heart to 
God, and with the heart the every-day life 
in 4 shop, field, house or journey/ and could 
say, 4 Lord, even this mean work I do for 
thee, complying with thy will, which has 
put me in this station and given me this 
task. Thy will be done.’ When I read 
this, 1 thought, Why should I say this? 
What better will I be for saying it, or how 
happier ? I found out by reading on down 
the quaint old page, for the holy man wrote : 
4 This will keep the heart in a sweet temper 
all the day long, and have an excellent in- 
fluence on all our ordinary actions. This 
were to walk with God indeed, to go all day 
long as in our Father’s hand. This makes 
all estates sweet. This would refresh us in 
the hardest labor, as they that carry the 
spices from Arabia are refreshed with the 
smell of them in their journey ; and some 
observe that it keeps their strength and 
frees them from fainting.’ I turned back 
and read it all over until I saw just how 
simple, yet how grand and wonderful, it was 
to give one’s self to God — to take what comes 


110 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


to us, not as ‘ happenings/ but as his will ; 
to pray for his Holy Spirit, which he will 
always give to those who ask. I prayed 
then not to die, not for any one thing that 
I fancied would make my troubles lighter, 
but that I might learn his will and let mine 
go. He answered me, and, although my 
home never was like yours, Madge, my 
* estate was sweeter.’ ” 

It never occurred to Madge that the old 
lady who was now rocking so peacefully in 
the twilight had been preaching at her, but 
it did come to the young girl suddenly that 
there were life-lots darker than hers. Indeed, 
after admitting so much, she went farther, 
and confessed that she had a warm, sunny 
home, the kindest, most helpful friends that 
a girl could have, and, after all, the chief 
trouble was with Madge Preston herself — 
this Madge who had not come just where she 
could give up her will and learn the lesson 
which grandma learned long years ago when 
she too was young. But the talk had done 
her good. She sprang up with a brighter 
face and gave the old lady a hug, exclaim- 
ing, “ You are always bringing spices from 


HAPPENINGS. 


Ill 


Arabia and giving everybody near you 
something sweet and pleasant; that is just 
your mission then, while grandma straight- 
ened her cap, she went to find Ruth. 

It was not Ruth’s way to dance or to show 
great excitement over a surprise of this kind. 
Indeed, her first emotion had been something 
not unlike dread. It seemed not very pleas- 
ant to think of putting an ocean between 
herself and those she loved best, and, kind 
as Cousin Jane might prove, she was a very 
different person from Ruth’s own mother. 
Madge would be perfectly satisfied with an 
older companion who liked sightseeing and 
was good-natured, but Ruth liked people 
who always understood her when she felt ill 
or sad or lonesome. At home she had such 
a friend in father, mother, Grandma Grey — 
even in Abbey after a curious fashion. 

This night Madge asked Abbey, who was 
setting the supper-table, where Ruth was. 

“ I don’t know — somewheres about, for 
your ma and she just went out of here.” 

“ Do you know she is going to Europe, 
Abbey, with the Raynors?” 

“ Well, I didn’t till your ma told her all 


112 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


about it half an hour ago, right before me 
here as I was a-darnin’ that hole in the 
carpet.” 

“ What did she say and do, Abbey ?” 

“She was stupefied, as you might say, 
first off, then she laughed a little, then she 
kind of slid down nose first into the lounge- 
cushion and come up looking teary around 
the eyes, and wanted to know why you 
couldn’t go too, and did wish dreadfully 
that you could.” 

“We are of one mind there, Abbey.” 

“ How can you be so deluded !” exclaimed 
Abbey, pausing with a plate of cold ham 
in one hand while she gesticulated with 
a carving-knife in the other. “ I can’t see 
how anybody, unless ’tis Satan or a peddler, 
can want to go roaming over the earth. 
Think of crossing that great stomach-sick- 
ening waste of water ! I heard Mrs. Ray- 
nor tellin’ how the houses over there hadn’t 
half of ’em any carpets on the floors and 
folks ate their breakfast in bed — well folks, 
too ; how, outside of England, you couldn’t 
talk your own native tongue. Deliver me 
from such goings on until I’ve breathed up 


HAPPENINGS. 


113 


all the air on this side and seen things nearer 
my own front door!” 

Laughing at Abbey’s vehemence, Madge 
left her and joined the family, whom she 
now found together, all talking Europe ; 
and they talked of almost nothing else for 
several weeks after. 


CHAPTER VI. 

RUTH SAILS AWAY. 

“Sweet are your eyes, 0 little ones that look with smiling 
grace, 

Without a shade of doubt or fear, into the future’s face; 

Sing, sing in happy chorus : with joyful voices tell 
That death is life, and God is good, and all things shall be 
well” 

T HE only person in the family who, judg- 
ing from appearances, seemed to take no 
interest in the excitement about Ruth’s 
going away was Uncle Henry. He asked 
no questions, he lingered to hear no talk, 
but he daily read, walked or shut himself 
up to solitude in his own room. Only once 
he surprised Ruth by showing a most sat- 
isfactory understanding of present affairs. 
Mrs. Preston and the girls had been exam- 
ining Ruth’s simple wardrobe, and they had 
found it very simple indeed. Outspoken 
Madge had exclaimed, 

114 


R UTH SAILS A WA Y. 


115 


“ You ought to have no end of new clothes, 
Ruth. What are you going to do?’’ 

“ I have heard that people do not need so 
very much in traveling; besides, Ruth is 
not a young lady yet, and no one will ex- 
pect her to wear fine things,” said Mrs. 
Preston, adding cheerfully, “We must, of 
course, get everything necessary for her 
comfort.” 

“ I only want to look well enough, so that 
Cousin Jane will not think me shabby.” 

“ I don’t see how you can help being 
shabby,” continued Madge, not to make 
any one uncomfortable, but because she 
had a cold-blooded way of looking at their 
old garments and seeing them exactly as 
they were. 

Ruth was always so sorry for her mother’s 
difficulty in getting them better things that 
she was more merciful toward her old clothes. 
This day she shook her head warningly at 
Madge and remarked brightly, 

“ One thing I do insist on, Mother Pres- 
ton : if you go to pinching yourself and 
going without this and that in order to fit 
me out, I will not go. I do not ‘ tear and 


116 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


rend’ as Abbey says Madge does, and my 
clothes last.” 

“I am sure I never complained that mine 
did not last,” groaned her sister. 

Mrs. Preston sighed as she surveyed the 
neat, well-patched and somewhat faded ap- 
parel. Madge caught up a dark-brown 
flannel, Ruth’s last “ best dress,” and ex- 
claimed, 

“ I always liked this, and it really is more 
becoming to me than to Ruth. Now, mother, 
let me have this, and Ruth can have the new 
dress that I was to have. If she has one 
other besides the new one that she is to have 
any way, she can get along better. This 
brown flannel is real becoming to me.” 

“ Oh, you precious old hypocrite !” cried 
Ruth ; “ pretending to like that old flannel, 
so that you can make me take your new 
one ! I will not do it ; there, now !” 

“ Madge is so generous that you will make 
her happy if you take her offer, Ruthie, 
and perhaps we can get her a new white 
dress for warm weather.” 

But Ruth could not be reconciled to this, 
and the mother was greatly puzzled over 


RUTH SAILS AWAY. 


117 


ways and means. Not one word was said 
before any other member of the family, 
however; so it seemed rather remarkable 
that Uncle Henry should put a paper in 
Madge’s hand when they rose from the din- 
ner-table. He said, as he gave it to her, 

“Tell your mother to get Ruth’s outfit 
with it.” 

When Madge saw that the check was for 
one hundred and fifty dollars, she danced 
with glee. It seemed to her a perfectly im- 
mense amount, and the satisfaction of the 
economical mother was almost as great. Only 
one who can plan, can buy to good advan- 
tage and can cut, fit and sew neat garments 
at home will understand how rich the moth- 
er and daughters now were. Every day 
there were interesting consultations, and 
everybody’s advice was asked. Grandma’s 
old fingers fashioned a quantity of pretty 
neck-ruffles out of the delicate lace that 
she liked to work with. Even Abbey flat- 
tered herself that her expressed opinion de- 
cided Ruth in buying a very dark-green 
traveling-dress instead of one of some other 
color. Madge thought nothing could be 


118 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


more delightful than this privilege of “ go- 
ing right into a store and buying pretty 
handkerchiefs and cuffs by the dozen, just 
as other girls do it.” But, much as she 
liked pretty things herself, she did not dream 
of envying Buth ; while, as for Butli, she 
was comically troubled over her treasures, 
and she more than once declared, “ I am 
going to be just as careful as I can be of 
these things ; then, the minute I get home, 
Madge, we will divide. Besides, I shall 
bring you everything pretty that I can get 
without stealing.” 

In work like this the time went swiftly 
by. After the daylight faded every after- 
noon Buth and her mother had long quiet 
talks. No one could understand what a 
trial it was going to be to Mrs. Preston to 
let this delicate, tenderly-guarded child of 
hers go so far away from her care and her 
love ; but she felt that it was also a trouble 
to Buth to take her first flight from the fam- 
ily-nest, and she devoted herself to strength- 
ening the young daughter’s courage. 

The days grew longer and warmer, the 
trees blossomed, and all the spring flowers 


RUTH SAILS AWAY. 


119 


returned; so almost before the proposed 
voyage had come to seem much more than 
a dream to Ruth the day of departure drew 
near. It was arranged that her father and 

mother should go with her to L , where 

the Raynors lived, and that they should 
stay there until the party left for New York. 
Madge would gladly have gone too, and her 
mother not only gave her the opportunity, 
but she urged her to go in her stead; but 
this time Madge’s perceptions were very 
keen, and she divined that Ruth would 
naturally cling closest to her mother and 
wish to have her longest with her if she 
must choose among the dear ones. 

At last there came a lovely May morning 
when the apple trees were masses of pink- 
and-white bloom and everything without 
the house seemed radiant in sunlight. In 
the hall were gathered those who were to 
go and those who were to stay. Johnny, 
rushing from the gate to the door and back 
again, watched for the old hack from the 
station, while Ruth, seated on her trunk, 
tried to button her glove as coolly as if going 
to sail the seas over were nothing to be ex- 


120 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


cited about. There was, however, a very 
pink spot on each of her cheeks ; and when 
she had to speak, her voice was not under 
her control. Grandma Grey kept bringing 
forward little papers of cough-drops, tiny 
bottles of smelling-salts, camphor or cologne, 
and asking, as she had asked scores of times, 
if “ the child had everything in case ” of this 
or that malady. Abbey was not visible. 
She had put severe control on herself long' 
enough to hug Ruth frantically, but with- 
out tears ; then she had fled, and now, seat- 
ed on the cellar stairs, she was sobbing as 
if her heart were broken. 

“ Hack coming !” shouted Johnny ; and 
when it arrived at the gate, Mrs. Preston 
and the Professor hastened out. Uncle 
Henry and Johnny started away on foot 
for the station, while Madge, who could not 
trust herself there, stayed at home with 
grandma. 

“ God bless and keep you !” faltered the 
old lady. “ Into his care I trust you, my 
precious lamb.” 

Madge could not say one word because 
of the choking in her throat and the blind- 


RUTH SAILS AWAY. 


121 


ing tears, but Ruth, kissing her again and 
again, sobbed, 

“ You are the best sister in the world now, 
Madge, but you will be a double comfort 
after this, won’t you? Since I have been 
getting ready to leave this home I realize 
what a blessed place it is.” 

“ Come !” called the party in the hack ; 
and Ruth, who turned for a long look at 
the familiar hall, cried out as she ran down 
the steps, “ Say ‘ Good-bye ’ to Abbey. She 
is hiding, and I know why then the slen- 
der figure and the fair young face vanished 
inside the weatherbeaten hack. 

“ Oh what a horrible long, lonesome day 
we shall have in this quiet house !” groaned 
Madge a few minutes later. 

“Yes, it must be dreary for you, dear,” 
said her grandmother, cheerily ; “ but you 
can make it more endurable by a little effort. 
Things are confused and out of place. Ab- 
bey and I are going to work, and I think if 
you were to do the same you would feel bet- 
ter. Your mother proposed that you should 
take Ruth’s room while she is away; she 
says if she saw it occupied and looking as 


122 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


usual it would not make her feel so sad as 
to find it always empty. Then Bert Ray- 
nor can have your room.” 

“Well, I don’t want any rough boy in 
that neat, dainty place that Ruth took such 
comfort in making pretty,” said Madge, add- 
ing frankly, “ Though, as to that, I shall 
have to be a great deal more particular my- 
self if I keep things there looking as they 
did when Ruth was home. But it might 
be well for me to try.” 

Grandma smiled faintly, and it occurred 
to Madge that her mother had thought of 
this same thing; but in her softened mood 
she was very humble, so she only remarked, 

“ Yes, that is a good idea ; I will move 
into Ruth’s room this very day.” 

She went listlessly up stairs, and ap- 
proached her bureau reflecting, “ I might 
as well begin where the confusion is always 
the worst — at my bureau-drawers.” 

She opened the deepest drawer and stared 
into it with surprise. Everything there was 
in the most exquisite order, but nothing was 
familiar. Her first thought was that Ruth 
had left a part of her outfit, but these were 


RUTH SAILS AWAY. 


123 


not the new things that she had seen among 
her sister’s purchases. Still, here were pretty 
new collars, new handkerchiefs, fresh gloves, 
ribbons, a dainty white dress — a whole big- 
drawer full of just such articles as young 
girls desire and need. At the very bottom 
was a letter from Ruth that explained the 
matter. Did Madge think she would be 
such a “ dreadful pig ” as to use a hundred 
and fifty dollars all on herself? So a gen- 
erous amount remained after Ruth had, as 
she declared, “ everything that she could 
possibly require or wish for,” and it was 
so “ nice ” to be able to leave this dra wer full 
for her “ poor Madge, who must stay home 
and see her money wasted on a sister with 
a good-for-nothing constitution.” One half 
of the letter was full of affectionate non- 
sense, as if the writer were trying to keep 
up her own spirits, but the last half was in 
a different strain. 

“ Now, Madge,” she wrote, “ there is some- 
thing I want to say ; but whenever I begin 
to ‘ preach/ as you call it, you say something 
funny and stop me, or you run away, and I 
never like to make you listen to me, because 


124 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


you may fancy that I think I am very good 
myself. I have felt cross and hateful some 
days since my head has ached so much” 
(“ She did not show it, if she felt it,” com- 
mented Madge) ; “ and when I thought I 
might not live, I was very, very gloomy ” 
(“Well you might be! I think I should 
have been scared out of my wits”). “I 
am enough of a Christian not to be afraid 
to die, but I want to live. I want to be a 
better Christian, too, and then I can under- 
stand what grandma means when she says, 
4 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ 
(“ Oh dear ! I wish she would not talk about 
her dying. It is nonsense, for nothing ails 
her but weakness ”) . “ But I don’t write to 

talk about myself ; I want to ask you again, 
Madge, why you can’t make up your mind 
that you will become a Christian if you are 
not sure you are one already ? If you hope 
that you are one, why will you not say so to 
the family and let the schoolgirls know it? 
You are braver than I am, and more out- 
spoken ; I believe that you are only waiting 
to be better. Don’t wait any longer. I was 
not good that Sunday a year ago when I 


RUTII SAILS AWAY. 


125 


joined the church, and I am not good now ; 
but I love good things and good people, and 
I know that I love the Saviour and that he 
is my Saviour. I hope and expect to come 
back to live years and years with you ; but 
if I never do — You will think of this, 
won’t you ? You ought to know, after liv- 
ing with father, mother, Grandma Grey 
and Abbey, who are all Christians, ‘that 
there is nothing dismal,’ or nothing to make 
you disagreeable or unhappy, in such a life. 
I think it just means asking God to teach 
us his will, and then doing it ; asking him 
to mark out a way for us, and then going in 
it ; and loving him all the time, because we 
can’t help it if we only begin to think and 
to pray. Now, Madge, some day when I 
am away off and the ocean rolls between us, 
won’t you write me a letter and tell me you 
have made up your mind once for all ? I 
shall pray for it and wait for it, and I be- 
lieve I shall get it.” 

The tears were drojDping steadily into the 
drawerful of pretty gifts as Madge folded 
up Ruth’s letter and resolved to keep it 
very sacredly. She did not want to resolve 


126 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


anything more then, or to have thoughts of 
anything disconnected with Ruth herself. 
Of course she meant to be good — that is, to 
be a Christian — sooner or later. Then she 
thought of Ruth and what pleasure and 
profit she would get out of this trip : “It 
is all right that she should go, much as 
I would like to have been the one. Ruth 
will appreciate fine pictures and enjoy places 
that have historical associations ; she knows 
much more of such things than I. I should 
have wanted most to see the cities like Paris, 
and the gay foreign life, the shops, and all 
that.” 

Madge sat day-dreaming a while; then 
she fell to looking over her treasures with 
keen pleasure in their possession. The let- 
ter she dropped into her “ jewel-box,” as 
she called a modest casket containing an 
equally modest collection of gifts and trink- 
ets ; the gloves she tried on, the ribbons she 
knotted into bows and ornaments, and by 
dinner-time she had decided how to have 
her white dress trimmed. 

At dinner the conversation turned at once 
to the absent, and Madge said, 


RUTH SAILS AWAY. 


127 


“ Grandma, did I tell you what Ruth and 
I agreed to do ?’ ’ 

“ I do not know, dear ; you tell me of 
so many plans.” 

“ Well, our last was this : we are each 
going to keep a journal and write in it all 
sorts of things that happen, or what we 
think — just as we would talk if we were 
together, you know. She says in that way 
she will know things that I would forget 
to put in a letter or that I would think were 
of no importance. If we have secrets — 
girls have, you know — why, we will make 
a star at such paragraphs, and that will 
be strictly confidential. This is my idea. 
Ruth says she never could be writing any- 
thing that you all must not know, but I 
think she might. Suppose a Russian duke 
or an Abyssinian earl should want to marry 
her ? She could tell me how he was perse- 
cuting her without worrying father and 
mother on her account,” laughed Madge. 

“ Your father and mother wouldn’t worry 
the least bit in the world,” returned Grand- 
ma Grey, sipping her tea. “Ruth is only 
a little girl, but she is not a simpleton.” 


128 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ And Mr. Raynor is big enough to box 
the duke’s ears,” added Johnny. 

“ Well, that is about what Ruth said her- 
self; but, any way, I insisted on the stars. 
If she never uses any, why then there never 
will be anything confidential in our corre- 
spondence; that is all. For my part, I like 
to have a secret, for it keeps me so excited 
all the time for fear I shall tell it.” 

“ And you almost always do tell it,” said 
Johnny — so truthfully that they all laughed; 
for Madge’s secrets were as transparent usu- 
ally as they were innocent. 


CHAPTER VII. 


EVERY DAY. 


“The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless 
when unbroken.” 



|NE pleasant afternoon Abbey sat enjoy- 


^ ing the mild air in a little portico at 
a side-door opening into the dining-room. 
The supper-table was set, but Professor 
Preston had not yet returned from the 
academy, and Mrs. Preston had gone to 
call on a neighbor. Abbey was picturing 
to herself a great ship tossing in mid-ocean, 
was wondering what Ruth was doing and 
if she were well or ill, when the gate just 
below clicked. Looking up quickly, Abbey 
saw a pale, thin young man who respectfully 
lifted his hat and asked for the Professor; 
then, learning he was not at home, he wished 
to see his wife. At Abbey’s suggestion he 
said he would wait to see the Professor, with 


129 


9 


130 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


whom he had business, but he declined to 
enter the house and seated himself in a chair 
which Johnny had left there. Abbey, not 
“ exactly wanting to seem scared away, but 
meaning to go in,” as she explained later, 
arose, and, picking up some leaves that were 
scattered about, she turned toward the 
dining-room. 

“ I beg your pardon,” began the young 
man, politely, “ but perhaps you can tell 
me what I want to know.” 

“ Perhaps I might,” returned Abbey. 

“ Does Professor Preston ever hire any 
one to sweep the academy, to make fires, 
ring bells or do any work of that kind?” 

“Yes; I believe there is a sort of an 
underwitted fellow there who has done such 
things goin’ on five years now.” 

“ Indeed ! Well, I should despise myself 
if I were to attempt to displace any worthy 
youth, especially if he were one of limited 
intelligence, like the individual you mention ; 
but I myself am in very indigent circum- 
stances, and I am seeking work, no matter 
how menial, in order to fit myself for the 
ministry. I thought I might possibly earn 


EVERY DAY. 


131 


my education by services rendered in that 
institution of which the Professor is the 
honored head.” 

Abbey was very much impressed by the 
young man ; he was very solemn and spoke 
like a minister already. 

“ I don’t know what he might do, but I 
am afraid he’ll be more willin’ than able,” 
she remarked, adding, by way of suggestion, 
perhaps, “ There used to be a one-legged 
fellow who sold sewing-silk ; he said he was 
a- taking himself through college. He came 
regularly for seven years.” 

“ His course was probably prolonged, if 
he was obliged to make it on one leg.” 

“ Yes, naturally. I believe he was going 
to study medicine.” 

“ Many are the obstacles I have encoun- 
tered already, and many yet rise before me,” 
were the young man’s next words, uttered 
in such a melancholy tone that Abbey was 
really touched. She asked kindly, 

“ Do your folks live around here ?” 

“ I am a waif on the ocean of human 
life.” 

“A what?” asked Abbey, curiously. 


132 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ I have no home, no kindred. I was 
born to affluence, but my father’s property 
was lost in the Chicago fire ; my mother 
died in a lunatic asylum. A philanthropist 
bought me a peanut-roaster and started me 
in business ; a month after, I was carried to 
the small-pox hospital and — ” 

“ What for?” 

“ For the small-pox, madam.” 

“ Had peanuts anything to do with it ?” 

“ Not the least. But I lost business. On 
my recovery I hid on board a ship to China 
and went around the world. Oh, I have seen 
life under harrowing aspects.” 

“You are not pock-marked the least bit 
in the world,” said Abbey. 

“ No ; but if all the vicissitudes through 
which I have passed had left their sign-man- 
ual, as it were, upon me, I should be a veri- 
table tattooed man, an autograph-album, a 
crazy pattern-piece of fancy patchwork, a- — ” 

“ What sort of a minister are you going 
to study for?” inquired Abbey. 

“An eclectic.” 

“ There isn’t any church of that sort 
around here anywhere.” 


EVERY DAY. 


133 


“Is it possible! Well, one could easily 
be started, no doubt/’ said the young man, 
solemnly studying Abbey from the shock 
of drab-brown hair all on end to her feet, 
encased in orange-and-red carpet-cloth slip- 
pers. 

Abbey in her turn was musing on the 
fact that the sombre young person wore very 
fine broadcloth, that his cuff-buttons were 
curiously-carved stones. 

“ Yes, my attire is inappropriate,” he re- 
marked, “ but it was a gift. A week ago I 
was walking the streets of Albany conju- 
gating a Hebrew verb for the improving of 
my mind and the forgetting, if possible, of 
my gnawing hunger, when the fiery horses 
of a State senator came dashing down the 
street. The senator’s paralyzed wife was 
in the carriage, about to be overturned. I 
saved her life, and these clothes are a token 
of her husband’s gratitude.” 

“ Why didn’t you get him to find you 
some honest work to do instead? Those 
clothes are altogether too fine for your cir- 
cumstances,” said Abbey, coolly. 

“I could do nothing with him, for this 


134 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


reason : He overheard me warbling a few 
wild notes to myself one night, and he in- 
sisted that I should be trained for an opera- 
singer.” 

“ Can you sing too?” 

“ Oh, inimitably ! There are times when, 
as Shakespeare — I think it is he — remarks, 
feeling rises upon feeling and emotion urges 
forth emotion until it breaks over the short, 
sharply-articulated sounds of common utter- 
ance and swells forward in the prolonged, 
increasing and diminishing diapasons of har- 
mony which subside and thrill upon the roll- 
ing waves of melody. In times like these I 
sing.” 

Abbey was credulous, but there were lim- 
its even to her simplicity. She turned away, 
and, crossing the next room, appeared to 
Madge, who was alone in the hall. To her 
she briefly reported the interview, with the 
comment, 

“ He isn’t any common beggar, nor an 
agent either, as I can see. I can’t say any- 
thing about his moral character; but if talk 
was all a preacher required, he would earn 
a salary, I can assure you.” 


EVERY DAY . 


135 


4 4 1 will go and tell him when father will 
probably be home,” exclaimed Madge, who 
was always ready for diversion. 

When she appeared in the door the young 
man stood, and, holding his cap, repeated 
his first questions. He looked a trifle less 
solemn and seemed more boyish. A gleam 
of fun shot into Madge’s black eyes, but 
she was very grave as she said, 

44 Yes, I have no doubt that Professor 
Preston will be glad of your services. To 
be sure, the school-term ends in a few days, 
but you might take charge of it for the sum- 
mer — the building, I mean. You could be 
sheltered, could spend your days studying 
the tattered old books left there in quanti- 
ties, and the place abounds in rats. Living 
as you have in China, you may have learned 
to eat what the natives eat. But one thing 
I do advise you not to attempt, and that is 
singing, if your voice is as hideous as it was 
when we used to give concerts in the gar- 
ret.” 

44 Good for you, Madge !” cried Bert 
Baynor, shaking her hand; while Abbey, 
open-mouthed, could not be at once made 


136 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


to believe that the short, round, red-faced 
little Bert of past days could have grown 
so tall, so thin and dark ; above all, that he 
could look so solemn when he wished to 
impose upon her. At that moment, how- 
ever, Mrs. Preston entered the gate, and 
Bert sprang forward to greet her. He 
dropped all nonsense at once, and behaved 
like a bright, sensible young fellow. When 
grandma came out to tea after the Professor 
had arrived, she could hardly persuade her- 
self that the dreaded Bert could have ap- 
peared in the form of such a “ civil lad,” as 
she called him later. Her first greeting had 
been severely dignified, but as she studied 
him over her spectacles and heard his re- 
spectful and affectionate allusions to his 
parents her features relaxed into their usual 
kindliness. 

In the course of a few days Bert had 
made himself entirely at home. As he was 
not very strong, his father wished him to 
live much out-doors, and this desire accorded 
well with his inclinations. He had brought 
everything necessary for fishing, hunting, 
and various other pursuits. He owned a. 


EVERY DAY. 


137 


bicycle, and he hired a rowboat for use on 
the nearest river. Almost every day he 
vanished just after breakfast, and was seen 
no more until dark. Johnny was allowed 
to accompany him on some of his shorter 
excursions, and more than once Madge 
wished she were a boy as she saw them 
start off for a tramp over hill and dale with 
a lunch-basket packed by Abbey. 

Madge was doing well in these first weeks 
after Ruth went away ; she studied more 
faithfully than she had done for a long time : 
Ruth’s letter had stirred her to take some 
sort of new action. She was not ready to 
attend to the “ one thing needful/’ but she 
quieted her conscience by assuring herself 
that she would “ do her duty as she saw it 
daily. Surely no one could expect more” 
of her? At home she turned over a new 
leaf, and her mother often smiled at her 
well-meant but spasmodic attempts to do 
things that Ruth had done. It was like 
a brisk breeze following a noiseless ray of 
sunshine. 

Madge’s first question every night as she 
hurried in from school was, 


138 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ Is there any news ? Have no letters 
come? Isn’t it time yet, mother?” 

At last, one day a special messenger from 
the village post-office came up to bring them 
the letter they had so anxiously awaited, 
and Madge received the first installment of 
the “journal.” Perhaps we cannot do better 
than to let the young girls have from this 
time on some part in telling their own 
story. 

From Ruth's Journal. 

“May 30, 18—. 

“ To-day we are in mid-ocean, and it seems 
to me that I have not thought or seen any- 
thing but ocean. I am not at all ill now. 
Still, Mr. Paynor says that I have so much 
inertia he always knows where to find me ; 
for if he leaves me in a chair on deck look- 
ing at the waves, he finds me when he comes 
there next time. This is just as well, be- 
cause Cousin Jane does not stay anywhere. 
We laugh at her, for in her state-room she 
is gasping after air and must get up on deck ; 
then, when she is there, rolled up like a 
mummy, in her steamer-chair, the sun comes 
out or the wind rises, and she totters down 


EVERY DAY. 


139 


again. I came up here after breakfast, and 
I have been swinging in a giant’s swing. 
A strong wind has made the boat ride up 
and down on tremendous waves, but I like 
it; and I wish you were here, Madge, just 
as we used to crowd together in the apple- 
tree swing in the garden. All day behind 
me have been first mountains of white foam 
like crumbling snow, then deep-green furrows 
full of what seemed like that snow turned 
to ice. 

“ There are a number of interesting- 
looking people on board the ship, and I 
have wondered who they are, but I do not 
expect to find out, although I have made 
one acquaintance who is rather entertaining. 
She is a young girl about eighteen who is 
going abroad with her mother and father. 
He is a big, red-faced, blustering man, who 
gives loud orders to servants and jokes with 
the captain. His wife is pleasant, but I 
never knew a real lady before who asked 
strangers such personal questions as she 
asks me, for instance. The daughter — 
Mabel Merritt — sat here by me a while to- 
day and talked about everything. I had 


140 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


brought from the library in the cabin The 
Vicar of Wakefield to read ; she began con- 
versation by asking me if it was exciting 
and by saying that it did not look very 
‘ lively/ She then offered me her book, 
which was Sir Somebody's Revenge , fine 
print, paper cover, and all full of the things 
that mother will not let us read, and which 
I do not want to read, any way. She asked 
if I ever read stories, and I told her of our 
library of Mrs. Stowe’s, Mrs. Whitney’s, 
Miss Mulock’s, and the others we like so 
much. She said those were all Sunday- 
school books, she thought, and then we con- 
cluded that I never had read what she calls 
stories. She advised me to do it in such 
a wise old way that I wanted to laugh ; she 
said I would learn about ‘ life,’ and then she 
described the plot of the novel in her lap. 
There was a wicked, hypocritical woman in 
it, and a murderer ; a rich and fascinating 
gambler, and a heroine who ought to have 
been in a lunatic asylum. I could not help 
thinking that if there were such lives (and 
I have no doubt that there may be) I never 
wanted mine to touch theirs, and so I said, 


EVERY DAY. 


141 


“ ‘ Why, if there were here in the ship a 
woman so bad as this one in the book, you 
would not get an introduction to her and 
make friends with her just to study her way 
of thinking and living, would you?’ 

“She seemed indignant at me, until I 
asked her what the difference was in study- 
ing the real person or studying all the talk, 
the thoughts and the life of a similar char- 
acter in a story. That puzzled her a mo- 
ment ; then she said that was a ‘ weak way 
of talking that strait-laced people’ had, 
hut that it was very ‘inconsistent,’ because 
Shakespeare’s finest plays were all about 
villains, and the Bible itself told of very 
wicked people. I do not know but that she 
may have had the best of the argument, 
and I told her so, although I said I thought 
there was a difference in the purpose of the 
Bible histories, and that Shakespeare’s vil- 
lains repelled one just as they would if they 
were living. She could talk much faster 
than I, and perhaps better ; but when I said 
that I liked good, honest people whom I 
could trust and admire, in books and out, she 
laughed and hoped I would like her. She 


142 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


began next to talk about theatres ; and when 
I said I never saw a play in my life, you 
should have seen her astonishment. She 
went away after asking me if I had been 
educated in a convent. Think of that ! This 
afternoon I was sitting here again, when she 
came back and began another long chat. 
She is older and has seen a great deal more 
of ‘ life/ as she calls it, than I have, but she 
does not look as if she were enjoying herself. 
She has dark rings under her eyes and looks 
listless. I think she talks to me, perhaps, 
because I amuse her with my ignorance. 
She asked if I had been ‘out’ long; and 
when I told her since breakfast-time, I found 
out she meant ‘in society/ She laughed 
about as heartily when I said that I had 
been out ever since I could remember as 
much as I ever expected to be, for I lived 
in a little village where daughters went with 
their mothers to church sociables, Sunday- 
school picnics and quiet tea-parties. She 
thought it must be ‘ dreadfully stiff and te- 
dious/ but I told her of our girls’ reading 
club, and before I knew it she was making 
me talk at a great rate about you all. She 


EVERY DAY. 


143 


said a grandmother like mine must be worth 
having, and some way, as I have been look- 
ing at her father and mother, I am better 
suited than ever with two parents I might 
mention if I chose. 

“Sunday, 31st. 

“ I have been to the morning service. I 
could almost say I have been to two services, 
for half of the time I sat in imagination in 
our seat, hearing our minister, seeing through 
the near open window the willows swaying 
over the parsonage gate. The other half 
of the time I was swaying with the motion 
of the ship and seeing through a port-hole 
the ocean and the sky, both intensely blue 
in the full sunshine. The long dining-sa- 
loon was filled with chairs, and a curious con- 
gregation gathered. There were the ship’s 
officers, part of an opera-troupe, an English 
nobleman and his wife returning from Can- 
ada, and a group of men and women from 
the steerage. The services were conducted 
by an old white-haired clergyman, who made 
them very impressive as he talked of our 
being here together for a few days, then 
parting never to meet until each life-voy- 


144 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


age was ended. Tell grandma we sang 
‘ Rock of Ages.’ Cousin Jane did not feel 
well enough to attend service, so I found 
Mabel Merritt and asked her to come with 
me. She only stayed a little while; then 
the room was too close, she said, and she 
went away. 

“ Tell Johnny I have made one intimate 
friend who says he wishes I were his sister. 
He is a sort of little under- waiter who runs 
on errands for the passengers and the stew- 
ardess, a pale, pretty boy only eleven years 
old. He seems to eat and sleep any time he 
gets a chance, and I do not think he can ever 
get many chances ; but he tells me he is the 
eldest of four children, and that he earns 
enough to pay his mother’s rent. He hates 
the sea, but he is very brave. He told me 
how seasick he was at first for a whole 
month, and how the sailors laughed at him 
for it; so that he used to go behind the 
wheel-house and pray, as his mother had 
told him to when he was in any ‘ distress.’ 
He said he was not ‘distressed’ that way 
now any more. He came a few times to 
bring me chicken-broth when I was a little 


EVERY DAY. 


145 


sick myself, and he begs me to have every 
variety of desserts. He gets so animated and 
happy when he tells of his home that I 
draw him out, and I know all about the 
children. If they all drop their ‘K s,’ as 
Charley does, they must be a funny set of 
Englishmen. He wants to be a gardener 
when he grows up, and he wished that 
he knew how to pray to be made one. 
We talked about it when he had time, and 
finally I printed a little prayer for him to 
learn, very like one grandma taught me a 
few years ago. I think it is better not to 
pray that he may be this particular thing 
or that, but that he may be kept from sins 
and from mistakes, and so try to be the 
kind of a man that God sees he could best 
make. Now, Madge, you will be saying 
that I fill my journal with things you do 
not care to know, but you said I must put 
in everything just as it came. 

“Mr. Raynor says that Mr. Merritt is 
a very rich man who has made his money 
within a few years. They don’t seem to 
anticipate much pleasure in traveling or 
seem to know or care where they will go. 

10 


146 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Mr. Merritt copied out Mr. Raynor’s route 
the other day, saying he 4 guessed that they 
might as well follow that line as any other 
so we shall probably often meet them. They 
are going to get off at Queenstown in order 
to 4 do ’ Ireland. 

“June 3. 

44 Early this beautiful morning I was out 
to see the Irish coast. It was very near, 
barren in spots, green and marked oft* in 
little sown places in parts, few trees, light- 
houses, and every little way a cluster of 
cabins ; sometimes a queer square tower. 
When we came near the Cove of Cork, the 
sea was covered with fishing-boats having 
butternut-brown-colored sails. The tug- 
boat that came out to the steamer rocked 
frightfully on the water, which looked 
greener than the green shore. Mr. Merritt 
seemed to think it came steaming out espe- 
cially for his benefit, and he was disgusted 
that it was not bigger ; but after much ado 
he got his trunks, his wife and himself on 
board. Mabel is as cool and indifferent as 
her father is boisterous and her mother 
nervous. I saw them on the little boat, and 


EVERY DAY. 


147 


thought that she was with them, when she 
appeared at my side, saying, 

“ ‘ I hope I will see you often, you are 
such a queer creature/ 

“I suppose I looked particularly queer 
as I heard that, for she laughed, saying, 
“‘You know too much for a little girl, 
and you are not one bit like any young lady 
I know. I don’t see where you grew up to 
be so innocent/ 

“ Then she went down to her mother, who 
was entreating her to hurry or she would 
certainly be left. When I remember how 
Mrs. O’Flarity, our washerwoman, always 
used to call idiotic people ‘ innocent/ I am 
uncertain whether or not to feel compli- 
mented. 

“ Evening. 

“ I suppose this is our last night on the 
steamer. And what a beautiful hour this is ! 
just a quarter to nine and a magnificent 
sunset-light left over the sea, and the full 
moon well up. My little cabin-boy and 
I have been having another talk ; he is very 
desirous that we should return on this same 
boat. Mr. Raynor teases me about making 


148 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS . 


such strange friends. The stewardess is 
a good woman who has seen a great deal 
of trouble with a drunken son and a bed- 
ridden daughter. She is a quiet, silent sort 
of person, but, some way, she has talked to 
me a great deal ; she is very kind to me. 


“June 10. 

“ I have written you such a long letter 
already that I hardly think you will want 
to read more, but, Madge, I have wanted 
you so much this rare day, and yesterday — 
and every day. Here I am in Stratford-on- 
Avon, in the queerest old inn — ‘The Red 
Horse Inn/ which Washington Irving tells 
about in the Sketch-Book . You must read 
the description if you have not done so. 
I have just finished my supper, and am 
sitting in the parlor — yes, in the very chair 
he wrote about, if the red-cheeked servant- 
girl tells me the truth. All day the sun 
has shone in a soft mellow way, and Cousin 
Jane and I have wandered around these old 
streets, past cottages with dark walls and 
stone floors, peeping in here and there. I 
am not going to tell you any more about our 


EVERY DAY. 


149 


visit to Shakespeare's house or Anne Hath- 
away's cottage ; but when I ended my letter, 
I had not been to the church. Cousin Jane 
does not see things in the order I should 
think she would, but has a funny way of 
her own. She always wants her dinner just 
when we arrive in a new spot, and I know 
she is wise, though at first it seemed dread- 
ful to sit coolly down to eat rare roast beef 
when something I had read of all my life 
was just around the corner waiting; but 
Cousin Jane always says, ‘ It won’t run 
away.' Well, after dinner we see the near- 
est wonder, and then she likes to take a ride 
or go shopping for curiosities. Last night 
we ended the day by buying small bound 
books of photographs in a little shop. The 
woman in charge must have made a mistake, 
for one among them was worth much more 
than we paid, if the others were sold at the 
right price. Cousin Jane said never mind ; 
that they were all too expensive and the 
woman made a good enough profit, but I 
told her I would take a morning walk and 
see about it. I had a fancy that I would 
like to take my first peep at the old church 


150 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


alone. I am not so sensible as people like 
the Raynors are ; they don’t wait to imagine 
any past or care for the histories of the 
people who once lived in certain places. 

“ It was a lovely morning, and after I had 
returned the book the woman told me the 
way to the church. I found it easily, and, 
entering the gate, turned into a long, broad 
avenue over which ancient long-limbed yew 
trees meet. The sky was faint blue above 
them, and across the churchyard I could see 
the sunshine playing on the water of the 
Avon. Each side of me were the graves, 
some very old, and everywhere the grass 
was short and thick like velvet. I thought 
the church itself would surely be closed at 
that hour in the morning, but I went slow- 
ly up the avenue, thinking that the child 
Shakespeare used to come this way some- 
times. When I reached the front door, I 
found it open, and, happening to look back 
down the avenue, I saw coming two clergy- 
men in white robes, then a woman carrying 
a tiny casket of oak, then three children 
with their father. They entered the church ; 
but when only a little way in, they put down 



Avenue to Stratford-on-Avon Church door 


Page 150 














* • ' 

. 

% ■ 

. 

4 



EVERY DAY. 


151 


the small casket on a bier more than six feet 
long, and the first clergyman read the burial- 
service. It was very solemn and strange to 
me. Behind me was the deep church, dim 
and empty ; over the place where I thought 
Shakespeare’s grave must be was his bust, 
which I knew from pictures of it ; close by 
me was the lifeless body of some little child 
who could have lived but a day or two ; and 
just beyond was all the outdoor sunlight on 
the grass, so fresh and shining with dew. 
When the service was ended, the nurse (I 
thought she must be that) took up again the 
little casket, and I followed them out, down 
near the bank of the Avon, where an old 
sexton dug a grave almost under the shad- 
ow of the church. Over our head the rooks 
wheeled in and out, the little birds twittered, 
and one of the children threw in the first 
earth that fell on the baby’s coffin. I do 
not know why I did not go back to the 
church after that; instead, I sat on a flat 
tombstone watching the river and the lights 
and shadows quivering over the graves. I 
wondered how much that child who never 
learned anything here had come to know 


152 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


when it awoke in heaven. Maybe, after 
only a few hours there (as we count time), 
it knew more than the great Shakespeare in 
life, with all his wonderful genius. 

“ I like this place. It is sweet and quiet ; 
in a morning like this there is no gloom 
about it.” 

With the journal came full letters telling 
of each day’s doings, and rejoicing the fam- 
ily with the knowledge that Ruth was bet- 
ter already and enjoying every moment. 

“To be sure, though, she is enjoying it in 
the odd way that she does everything else,” 
remarked Madge. “ It never in the world 
would have seemed pleasant to me to attend 
a strange funeral early in the morning and 
then sit down on a tombstone to think about 
it. I would have been much more inter- 
ested in those effigies of lords and ladies she 
writes about as stretched on their magnifi- 
cent tombs. What is it she says of them ?” 

Mrs. Preston replied : 

“She says they are in a church near 
Warwick Castle, and ‘are made of colored 
marble, having their ruffs, rings, chains and 


EVERY DAY. 


153 


state robes curiously wrought out. Over 
them hang rusty armor and tattered ban- 
ners ; beneath are endless titles and inscrip- 
tions.” 

“ I don’t wonder, though,” said grandma, 
“ that she liked better to think of the inno- 
cent little one buried in the sunshine. Those 
old monuments belong to the dark days of 
blood and crimes.” 

“ I am glad she puts everything into her 
letters,” added Johnny. “ I like to hear 
how they stopped at that little shop for 
lunch and had ‘ weal and ’am pies,’ and 
paid ‘ tuppence ha’penny’ for them.” 

“ Yes,” returned his mother, “ everything 
she can write to us will be sure to interest 
us, and the dear child knows it.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

MADGE’S SILENCE. 

“ ‘ This morn I will weave my web/ she said 

As she stood by her loom in the rosy light, 

And her young eyes, hopefully glad and clear, 

Followed afar the swallows’ flight.” 

O NE warm afternoon in midsummer Madge 
Preston was standing in the open hall 
door wondering what she should do to amuse 
herself. It was a little too warm for a walk, 
and just then she seemed to have exhausted 
her home-resources. 

“ You don’t know what to do with your- 
self, do you?” asked Bert Baynor, appear- 
ing in the hall behind her. 

“ How do you know but that I have so 
many things to do that I am just stopping 
to plan how to get them all done?” 

“ Because your face is vacant, and your 
mind is the same, judging from — There ! 
don’t shut the door. I am going to say 

154 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


155 


something very pleasant, Madge. Don’t 
you want to take a ride?” 

“ In the wheelbarrow ?” 

“ No ; a genuine ride in good style,” re- 
plied Bert. “I have worn my old clothes 
and tramped over ‘ bogs and fens ’ until I 
am satisfied for the time being. If you will 
accompany me, I will wash my face.” 

“ Can’t you do it alone ?” 

“ I mean after that process I will put on 
4 citizen’s clothing ’ instead of my 4 field-uni- 
form ;’ then I will hire a good horse and car- 
riage, and we will drive to Blodgett’s Creek.” 

Madge was at once all animation, and ran 
to consult her mother. Mrs. Preston could 
think of no reasonable objection, for the 
day was beautiful, Bert was accustomed to 
horses and Madge wished to go. At the 
same time, she hoped that Bert would not 
begin to alter his way of living. Since 
coming among them he had been excellent 
friends with Madge, but he had not depend- 
ed on her in the least for companionship. 
Both Mrs. Preston and her husband had 
watched Bert closely, but neither had seen 
anything in his conduct of which to disap- 


156 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


prove. They felt, however, as Mrs. Preston 
said this day to Grandma Grey : 

“If Madge’s companions do not do her 
positive good, I have noticed that they inva- 
riably get her into mischief — or she draws 
them in : I am never quite sure which way 
it works. Of course there is no harm in a 
pleasant drive through the country, but I 
would rather, as a rule, that these two should 
amuse themselves separately so long as Ruth 
is not here to keep them within bounds.” 

Grandma nodded her head in full agree- 
ment, remarking, 

“ It has seemed as if Madge were several 
years younger since Ruth went away ; she 
told me herself that she had lost her 
4 thinker.’ ” 

“It may be as well for her in the end. 
She used to let Ruth decide what was right 
and wrong, what wise and what foolish, as 
if she had little personal responsibility,” 
said Mrs. Preston. 

Madge, meanwhile, had hurried to her 
room to get ready. Her first impulse had 
been to wear the simple gingham frock that 
she happened to have on ; then, remember- 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


157 


ing something, she said to herself, “ There 
is a new hotel at Blodgett’s Creek lately 
opened for summer guests and excursion- 
parties; we might like to stop there for a 
few minutes.” I think I will wear my 
pink lawn.” 

Just as her toilet was completed she heard 
the sound of a horse at the gate, and then 
Bert’s voice calling, “ Don’t hurry, Madge, 
for I must change my coat so she lingered 
to take a bunch of white roses from the vase 
on the table and thrust them into her belt. 
Then, for lack of other employment, she fell 
to looking at herself in the mirror. 

Madge had not been a very pretty child. 
As Abbey said, she had always “ romped the 
flesh all off her bones her skin was very 
dark and her eyes had been “too big for 
her.” Buth, with her exquisite complexion 
and fair silky hair, had been regarded as the 
one best entitled to be called a beauty. But 
within a year or two Madge had undergone 
a transformation. Others outside the family 
had remarked it. Madge herself had scarce- 
ly begun to realize it, but to-day the reflec- 
tion of her own face in the mirror impressed 


158 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


her with actual surprise and a really new 
pleasure. She was lean no longer, and no- 
body could call her sallow, for a beautiful 
color glowed under the clear dark skin ; her 
eyes were very soft, yet brilliant, and the 
simple pink dress became her well. 

Bert was only about five minutes getting 
himself ready, but in that time Madge 
learned her first lesson in vanity. The roses 
that she had thrust into her belt because they 
were sweet she now pulled out, and one was 
put at her throat with studied careless- 
ness, and one in the mass of her shining 
hair, because she had discovered that she was 
beautiful as well as they. Indeed, as she 
turned to go down stairs, the thought oc- 
curred to her, “ It cannot have detracted 
any from my good looks in the past that I 
have not been one bit self-conscious. I be- 
lieve I am as bright and attractive this min- 
ute as Emma Nelson, who attitudinizes all 
the time as if she were sitting for her 
photograph.” 

Bert’s boyish greeting was not calculated 
to do away with her new impressions, for as 
he helped her into the carriage he remarked, 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


159 


“I used to think you were a precious 
homely little girl, as brown as a squaw, but 
you have gotten bravely over it. I wish 
you would teach a fellow the secret. My 
fond parents tell me that I was good-look- 
ing once, and then they sigh. However, 
honesty is the best policy. I see you wear 
pink cheeks with a pink dress to-day ; I 
suppose to-morrow blue or green would be 
the thing.” 

“ Don’t try so hard to be foolish,” said 
Madge, calmly. “ If you can’t be hand- 
some, you need not be a goose.” 

“ That is an excellent sentiment, and one 
does not expect such wisdom from you ; your 
sister Ruth is the girl for good advice.” 

“ She is the girl for everything good,” said 
Madge, warmly. 

“ Well, I believe she is. I only saw her 
for a few hours those few days before she 
sailed, but I thought she was cut on a new 
pattern. I never can understand that she 
is younger than you are. You and I, now, 
chatter like two infants together — ” 

“ Thank you !” 

“ — But Buth, who looks quite soft and 


160 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


innocent and harmless, is the most quietly 
independent, sensible creature I ever en- 
countered. I grew old every time I talked 
with her. You need not laugh, now ; I did. 
She has a way of putting calm, reasonable 
questions that one is surprised into answe - 
ing honestly and then wondering over after- 
ward. The last night she was at our house 
we talked of my coming here. She never 
preached a bit, but she gave me to under- 
stand that I was expected to behave my- 
self and not to corrupt Johnny’s youthful 
morals. (I think she warned me against 
your frivolous influence, or maybe it was 
mine over you.) She did not say in plain 
English, ‘ Go to Hempstead and begin to 
make a man of yourself,’ but it amounted 
to that. I half agreed that I would try it, 
for variety. I even told her that I did 
sometimes spend five or ten minutes in re- 
flection as to my future career — whether I 
would study medicine or start a dime mu- 
seum. Doesn’t she hate tobacco, though !” 

“ I don’t know ; no one smokes at our 
house.” 

“ I am aware of that fact,” said Bert, with 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


161 


a queer smile, adding, “ That is the odd thing 
about Ruth.” 

“ What is ? That she does not use to- 
bacco?” said Madge, flippantly. 

“ Why, she is good and conscientious, and 
all that, yet along with it she is as uncon- 
ventional and as full of fun as any girl not 
half so straight up and down.” 

“ Oh, Ruth was born sweet-tempered and 
unselfish and truthful,” returned Madge, 
really believing what she said. 

“I saw Dick Nelson this morning, and 
he told me that he and his sister Emma 
were going to drive over to Blodgett’s Creek 
this afternoon ; that was what put it into 
my head to go. He says the new hotel is 
very well managed and quite filled up with 
boarders.” 

“ Yes, I have always wanted to see it,” 
said Madge. 

“ If Emma and her brother should be 
there, do you suppose your people would 
object to our staying there for supper and 
then just long enough for a row on the wa- 
ter about sunset?” asked Bert. 

“ Wouldn’t that be delightful ! I don’t 
11 * 


162 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


know; I should not think mother would 
care/’ exclaimed Madge. 

“ Dick says the village people who keep 
horses drive there every day and stay for 
one meal and a row on the creek.” 

Madge was silent, trying to reason away 
a vague impression that it was just as well 
for Bert and herself not to join the Nelsons. 
She assured herself that they belonged to 
a perfectly respectable family, one of the 
wealthiest in the place, and — Well, how 
nonsensical to hesitate about spending a 
pleasant half hour in their society ! If 
Dick had the name of being very “ wild,” 
he was a year or two older than Bert and 
not at all likely to follow up his acquaint- 
ance. Emma was not the kind of a girl 
that Madge admired, but she was rather 
popular among her associates. 

At that moment Madge, attracted by the 
picturesque ruins of an old mill, suddenly 
exclaimed, 

“ Why, we are not on the right road !” 

“ I know it, but this is a far prettier one, 
and we have time enough.” 

Banishing every other thought, Madge 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


163 


then gave herself up to the present and 
greatly enjoyed the beauty of the country. 
Reaching the old mill, they fastened the 
horse to a fence and strolled over the ruins. 
A rapid stream fell over the rocks behind 
the mill, and lower down great willows 
shaded the banks ; they borrowed some 
fishing-rods and fished with no success. 
They lingered about the pretty place until 
Bert found, to his surprise, that it was six 
o’clock. When they were again on the 
road, he said, 

“ If we go on to Blodgett’s now, we must 
get supper there or go without it until con- 
siderably later. If you say so, we will turn 
back and go home. We have actually rid- 
den as far as we would have done had we 
gone there directly.” 

“ Which do you want to do ?” 

“ I want you to decide,” replied Bert. 

“ If you would enjoy going on,” said 
Madge, slowly, “ let us go ; I do not think 
mother would object. There can’t be any 
impropriety in getting one’s supper at a little 
country hotel like that.” 

“ Of course not,” said Bert, adding, “ The 


164 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Nelsons said something about an excursion- 
party being there to-day.” 

“ Then there will be all the more to see,” 
returned Madge, carelessly. 

In a half hour they reached the hotel, 
which was a rustic building with numerous 
piazzas. It was surrounded by a park with 
swings, croquet-grounds and accommodations 
for out-door picnics. Not far off was a 
wide, beautiful creek, its banks shaded, its 
water clear and deep. In certain parts of 
it lilies were plentiful and easily obtained. 

As Bert drove up to the nearest piazza 
a young girl rushed forward to greet Madge 
with lively demonstrations of pleasure. She 
was very pretty and very fashionably attired, 
and might have been attractive if her voice 
had not been on too high a key and all her 
movements of a sort to make people aware 
that she had moved. 

“ Oh, I was so afraid that you would not 
come !” she exclaimed, seizing Madge’s hand 
and then waiting for an introduction to Bert. — 
“ Dick told me he talked with you about the 
ride this morning,” she added, transferring 
her attention adroitly to Bert. 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


165 


Madge was a little puzzled at Emma 
Nelson’s sudden interest in her, as they had 
little to do with each other in school, but it 
was not disagreeable to be all at once taken 
most heartily into the latter’s good graces. 
Dick soon appeared, and Madge’s prejudices 
against him waned in the course of the next 
half hour; he was very polite and could 
talk in an entertaining way. 

Madge was highly pleased in sauntering 
around the verandas and in watching the 
people who thronged them. It was almost 
like taking a journey, she declared, to see 
everything new and so many strangers. 
Fortunately, she did not detect the sneer 
with which Emma glanced at her brother 
after this speech. Dick had been told that 
the Preston girls were “just as strait- 
laced and old-fashioned” as they could be, 
but he was evidently not at all inclined to 
find the description applicable to Madge. 
If Emma’s words had any effect, it was to 
make him very careful to carry himself 
with great propriety. Some of Emma’s 
friends he teased, joked or in the silliest 
fashion conducted with them what the shal- 


166 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


low-pated creatures called a “ flirtation.” 
On this occasion he contented himself with 
showing the party all the sights of the 
place and then making arrangements for a 
row on the water. 

Madge thought nothing could be more 
charming than that half hour which they 
spent gliding down the creek in the beautiful 
summer sunset. They sang as they rowed ; 
they dabbled their hands in the motionless 
water and plucked quantities of spotless 
lilies. When they turned the boat toward 
the starting-point, something suggested to 
Madge that she would do well now to go 
home ; but when they reached the hotel 
again, she put away the thought. The place 
looked very pretty ; through the forest-trees 
gleamed numbers of Japanese lanterns hung 
around the piazzas, a band was playing lively 
airs, and a loud gong announced that supper 
was ready. The dining-room was crowded 
with people gathered around small tables 
when at last Bert and Dick secured a table 
for the girls. Half the persons present were 
quiet summer boarders or families in parties 
from towns near by. The rest consisted of 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


167 


a mixed company of all grades, some per- 
sons among them being very noisy and 
very ill-bred, some so “ awfully countrified/’ 
to quote Emma Nelson, that they caused 
much merriment by their appearance. 

Bert Raynor was an excellent mimic, 
and Dick Nelson had command of a small 
kind of wit that usually served to set off 
Emma’s girl-friends into hysterical laugh- 
ter ; and so to-night, as they ate their sup- 
per, they indulged in much fun -making at the 
expense of their neighbors. They did it so 
covertly it is not probable that the innocent 
victims knew what was going on, but Madge, 
who was intensely amused, was none the less 
conscious that many people were watching 
them, because they certainly were making 
themselves conspicuous. She was secretly 
ashamed every time Emma Nelson, clasping 
her hands, on which glistened too many 
rings, would give an affected sort of cackle, 
ending often in something which narrowly 
escaped being a squeal rather than a “ peal ” 
of laughter. Emma’s cheeks were like 
blush-roses, her features very pretty, but 
Madge could not help wondering what Mrs. 


168 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Preston would have said had she been there 
to see her conduct. 

After supper she was less critical. She 
had been betrayed into talking considerable 
nonsense herself, and she was a little excited 
by the applause with which it had been 
received. Soon Bert said to her, 

“ Madge, we will not be able to get home 
before eight o’clock now, no matter how 
fast we drive; so Dick proposes that we 
stay a while and see the dance that they 
are going to have up in the ball-room. It 
will be no end of fun to see these country 
bumpkins and their sweethearts bouncing 
around on the floor.” 

“ Mother will not like it,” she replied. 

“Oh, she can’t care. We won’t go into 
the ball-room if you object ; we can see the 
whole performance by staying out here on 
the balcony,” said Bert. 

“ Oh yes, do stay just a little while,” ex- 
claimed Emma, coming nearer. “We will 
drive along the road together then. Dick 
wants our horse to rest a little longer, for he 
has driven it hard to-day.” 

Dick added his plea to the effect that now 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


169 


it was neither daylight nor dark, but later 
there would be fine moonlight. 

Just then the band struck up a stirring 
strain, and Madge’s companions seemed to 
consider the matter decided. She wanted to 
stay ; she knew she would enjoy it. What 
was the use of bothering now to find out if 
it were best, so long as there was nothing 
actually wrong or forbidden ? 

“ By the way, Bert, we had better go and 
see if they have fed your horse; there is 
such a crowd here they may neglect him,” 
suggested Dick, drawing Bert away and 
advising the girls to wait in some quiet place 
for their return. 

“ Oh, go see to the horses, by all means,” 
laughed Emma, with a peculiar tone puz- 
zling to Madge. — “ Don’t you like to go off 
on little excursions like this?” she asked 
when the boys had left them. 

“ I never have been here before, or away 
at any place like this in the evening.” 

“ Our set have very nice times. I mean 
the girls that I go with, and their brothers — 
the Mathers, the Blakes, the Graveses and so 
on. We are so much livelier than your set. 


170 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


Mary Parker is as ‘ poky ’ as if she were fit- 
ting herself to be a school-teacher, and all 
the others that your sister Ruth went with 
are so proper. I hate proper girls. There 
is Molly Ashburn, who has a fortune in her 
own right ; and if she would tease her guard- 
ian, she could go to a city boarding-school 
or dress splendidly. Molly does not own 
one single silk dress, and will not wear 
handsome jewelry because she is ‘ only a 
schoolgirl/ she told me, and her mother used 
to say silk dresses were unsuitable for young 
girls. I would not be so fussy for anything. 
Molly is not the sort of person, either, who 
can wear plain dresses and look as elegant 
as some people can. Now, you, Madge 
Preston, are perfectly bewitching in that 
pink lawn.” 

Emma Nelson was not addicted to com- 
pliments of this stamp. Madge was recov- 
ering from her surprise and flutter of tickled 
vanity when Emma went on : 

“ Mr. Raynor is a very entertaining young 
man, isn’t he ?” 

“ Bert ? Do you call him a young man ?” 
laughed Madge, excessively amused ; then, 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


171 


recovering her gravity, she remarked, “ He 
is a first-rate boy. We get along very nicely 
nowadays. When he was at our house years 
ago, we used to quarrel half the time, and 
the other half disturb the public peace in 
every way imaginable.” 

“ I shall come to see you very soon, Madge ; 
I never felt well acquainted with you until 
to-night. I should have tried to know you 
before, but, some way, I fancied your sister 
Ruth did not like me.” 

Fortunately, the band played just then 
with deafening loudness; and when Madge 
spoke, it was to propose a turn in the now 
deserted balcony. They walked around to 
the other side of the house and came face 
to face with Dick and Bert, meeting them by 
an open window of what seemed a bar-room. 

“ There ! we’ve caught you,” laughed Dick, 
carelessly. “ Going to get a drink on the 

sly?” 

“ Is that a bar-room ? I thought I smelt 
brandy or beer,” said Madge as they turned 
back all together. 

“ Brandy or beer ? Can’t you tell the dif- 
ference ?” asked Bert, in Dick’s tone. 


172 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ I don’t know but I might if I tried, but 
one odor is as disagreeable as the other,” re- 
turned Madge. 

When Dick laughed, the thought crossed 
her mind that he had been beguiling Bert 
into that very bar-room, but she dismissed 
it as wholly improbable. They went around 
to where they could see the ball-room and 
several sets of dancers all merrily engaged 
in this amusement, which had always had 
for Madge Preston a great fascination. 

Now, Madge had never in her life been 
forbidden to dance in a place like this, for 
the simple reason that her parents had never 
supposed such a prohibition necessary. She 
had often longed to go to dancing-school, 
but her one request had been answered by 
her father thus : “ Nature has taught you to 
do all the dancing that I ever care to have 
you undertake.” For all this, Madge could 
dance very well. She had learned it of the 
schoolgirls because she loved the graceful 
motions and the exercise. She had never 
danced except for play, and never expected 
to do so until this spirited music made her 
feet keep time almost in spite of herself. 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


173 


“See here!” exclaimed Emma. “Madge 
is so excited or so chilly that she is hopping 
around out here in the dark. Let us go in- 
side and stand near the door. I am afraid 
of taking cold here ; my dress is very thin.” 

They entered the bright room and stood 
as spectators among many others who were 
looking on. A lady standing not far away 
from Madge whispered, 

“There is the prettiest face I have seen 
here, or anywhere else lately.” 

“ Where ? Oh, that is a Nelson girl, from 
Hempstead,” was her companion’s reply. 

“ I know her . Handsome enough, but too 
loud. I mean that little beauty in a pink 
lawn — the girl next to Emma Nelson.” 

Where is the young girl who can hear 
herself for the first time pointed out as a “ lit- 
tle beauty ” and not feel as did Madge — that 
this world is a very pleasant place, and that 
people are very appreciative? Emma be- 
gan to think her companion was not so un- 
like her “ set ” as she supposed, for Madge’s 
spirits rose perceptibly. 

Suddenly, Hick caught his sister by the 
arm, saying, 


174 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Come, Emma ! They can’t find enough 
dancers for this last set that they are mak- 
ing up; let us take one turn.” 

Emma agreed with alacrity, and soon 
Madge saw her dancing very gracefully. 

“ I know that ; we girls used to dance it 
together at recess,” said Madge, longingly. 
“ Oh, doesn’t it look fun? and isn’t that 
music enough to take you off your feet?” 

“ If you can keep on yours, we will strike 
out ourselves,” returned Bert. 

“ Let us try it, then ; now we are here we 
might as well have all the fun there is,” re- 
plied Madge, eagerly ; and they followed the 
example of Dick and Emma. 

“ Madge Preston,” said Bert considerably 
later, “ if you know what is wise, you will 
come right off the floor. We can only just 
reach home by ten o’clock, and what, in the 
mean time, will they think has become of 
us?” 

Madge gave a little cry of dismay, and 
quickly made ready to go home. Emma 
and her brother started from the hotel at 
the same time, and drove at their side all 
the way of the return. Madge was almost 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


175 


glad not to have time to think of anything 
beyond their nonsense and how she should 
reply to it in the same strain. 

They drove into the long main street of 
the town just as the old town-clock struck 
ten. The Nelsons turned off toward their 
showy residence, in the most aristocratic part 
of the village, while Bert drove up the hill 
to the Prestons’. Madge jumped out of the 
carriage at the gate, saying, 

“ I don’t know what mother will say to 
me.” 

“ You can lay as much blame on me as 
you like,” returned Bert, good-naturedly, as 
he drove away toward the livery-stable. 

As Madge went through the hall she heard 
rapid steps and earnest talking in the din- 
ing-room, toward which she went. On the 
threshold she met Abbey, who told her hur- 
riedly that Grandma Grey had been having 
one of her “ attacks.” The old lady was 
sometimes taken very suddenly with severe 
pain and great difficulty of breathing. At 
such times the whole family was much ex- 
ercised, because Dr. Hickox had said that 
the trouble came from a form of heart- d is- 


176 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


ease which might prove fatal. On this occa- 
sion, however, the worst pain had passed ; 
the old lady was growing comfortable, and 
Abbey assured Madge that Dr. Hickox had 
said there was no danger that she would not 
soon be as well as before this attack. 

“ I declare, we have flew around here for 
an hour or two. I’ve no idea what time it 
is, and I had forgotten that you were not in 
the house all the while,” said Abbey. 

At that moment Mrs. Preston appeared, 
looking very warm and tired. 

“ Why, Madge !” she exclaimed. “ Is it 
not late ? Where have you been ? I should 
have worried about you if I had not been 
so busy and excited for fear your grand- 
mother was going to be worse than usual. 
Have you had an accident?” 

“ No, mother, but we did not go directly 
to the creek ; we stopped at a place on the 
south road where there is an old mill, and 
the first thing we knew the afternoon was 
almost gone.” 

“ Abbey, don’t let the kitchen fire go out,” 
said Mrs. Preston, her mind full of care for 
the old lady ; “ you know we may want more 


MADGE'S SILENCE. 


177 


hot water. — But where did you go then, 
Madge ? and have you had your supper ?” 

“ Then we thought we would drive to the 
creek and have just one row for water-lilies 
before it was very late. When we arrived, 
we found one of my schoolmates and her 
brother, who went rowing with us. I sup- 
pose I ought to have come home after that, 
but there were a great many people at the 
new summer hotel there, and we did want 
to stay for supper, for it seemed so gay and 
pleasant. Then we — It — There were — ” 
Abbey, who had disappeared, suddenly 
returned to say that grandma would like 
a glass of lemonade or something sour, and 
Mrs. Preston, who did not wait for more 
from Madge, only said, 

“ I hope you have had a nice time, but 
you must not stay away again anywhere in 
the evening when I do not know where you 
are.” 

“ I can tell you to-morrow everything we 
did,” returned Madge ; and behind her words 
was a thought like this : “ I can, and will — 
if she asks anything more about it ; but as 
likely as not she will forget or think that 
12 


178 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


I told her all there was to tell.” She was 
ashamed of the thought when it came first. 
She put it aside, saying, “ Let me make that 
lemonade ; you are both very tired.” 

“Very well; I wish you would do it. — 
Why, Johnny, you up yet? Go right to 
bed. It must be almost ten o’clock,” said 
Madge’s mother; and Madge, hurrying away, 
did not say just what the correct time was. 

No one went to bed very early that night, 
but Madge was certainly the last one asleep. 
She was elated, excited, troubled. How 
often she had admired Emma Nelson’s 
face, and how many compliments she had 
heard people bestow on Emma ! It was 
very pleasant to lie there in the darkness 
reflecting that her own eyes were larger 
and darker than Emma’s, her hair curled 
naturally where Emma’s was evidently 
crimped by pins, while, best of all, she 
knew how to act, how to speak, like a well- 
bred young girl. She might not be able to 
dress as richly as Emma could dress, but she 
resolved to cultivate exquisite taste in colors 
and dress-fitting ; then she would “ look as 
well as Emma looked.” If her mother did 


MADGE’S SILENCE. 


179 


not refer to the matter the next day, she con- 
cluded that she would wait until she did 
speak of it before going into particulars 
about the dancing and all that. No one at 
the hotel had recognized her ; she was glad 
of that. Some way, it would surely seem 
worse — much worse — than it really was, if 
her father or her mother, or any of the 
family, even Abbey, knew she had been 
dancing in such a public way and place. 
On the whole, she wished that no one of 
them ever need know it. Why need they ? 
She would write it to Ruth in her journal. 
No ; all written out on paper, it would ap- 
pear less — Well, less pleasant and proper 
than if she were to explain how it came 
about. At this point it occurred to her 
that Bert might betray her unless warned 
that she preferred to keep silence for a 
while; so she resolved to arise early and 
confer with him. 

Now, Madge Preston was too outspoken 
by nature and too truthful by principle to 
plan deliberately a course of continued 
deception, but she was a little giddy and 
unbalanced after her late excitement. In 


180 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


this mood there seemed to her no particular 
harm in not telling all the truth to her 
mother, if she told her no untruths. 

Mrs. Preston did not allude to the affair 
next day or in the days that followed. If 
she thought of it, she supposed she knew 
everything; for Madge’s habit was to talk 
about her exploits as long as she could 
secure a listener. 


CHAPTER IX. 

MADGE'S JOURNAL. 

July 15 . 

I CAN easily see, Ruth, how your new 
acquaintance, Mabel Merritt, finds you 
queer: we have not seen enough of the 
world to know how other girls talk and act. 
I presume traveling will improve you very 
much ; of course we couldn’t ask to have 
you any nicer, but you know what I mean : 
you and I are not one bit “ stylish.” We 
might just as well as not be “stylish;” it is 
not wicked, I’m sure, and people treat one 
with more consideration if, as Emma Nel- 
son says, “ one has an air .” 

Perhaps you think Emma has a great 
many airs ; but the more I know her, the 
better I like her. She has been to see me 
several times, and came once to ask me to 
ride with her in her pony-phaeton. Grand- 
ma has a prejudice against her because she 

181 


182 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


talks so fast and a little extravagantly, and 
because she never thinks to speak or bow to 
grandma when she comes into or goes out of 
the room. You know mother and Mrs. Nel- 
son have no calling-acquaintance with each 
other, but I do not see why for that reason 
mother need object to my visiting Emma, as 
Emma wants to have me do, and to my be- 
ing rather intimate with her. Other girls 
have friends who are perfect strangers to 
their parents. 

I told grandma this last night, and she 
said when mother was young she felt as I 
feel now. There was a girl in her school 
whom she greatly desired to visit, and be- 
cause grandma would not let her she secret- 
ly condemned her motives and fancied that 
grandma was proud of her “good blood,” 
and all that. She said to herself if this 
girl's father had not been a “poor tailor” 
she would have been allowed to visit her. 
One day mother ran away and took supper 
with her friend (think of our mother doing 
such a humanly naughty trick as that !); then, 
young as she was, she saw enough to show 
her that the people were vulgar and com- 


MADGE’S JOURNAL. 


183 


mon : they flattered her grossly and asked 
her very impertinent questions about her 
family affairs. Mother did not confess what 
she had done until years after, although she 
dropped her new acquaintance ; but the time 
came when she would have blushed to have 
had her name mentioned with the girl’s, 
and she saw grandma had been very wise. 
But, after all, this does not apply to me. 
Emma is a great deal richer than I am, 
and I do not believe her people are ex- 
actly vulgar, if they are not at all relig- 
ious or well educated. 

Bert likes Dick Nelson very much. I 
wish they were not together so often as 
they are. They met and got very well ac- 
quainted one evening at Blodgett’s Creek, and 
ever since that time they are inseparable. 

Buth, I wish you would write all sorts of 
little common observations in your journal 
— tell me how girls of my age put up their 
hair, for instance. I am tired of curls in 
my neck, just as if I were six years old in- 
stead of sixteen, and almost seventeen. I 
did mine up in a knot and wore a tall comb 
and frizzed it on my forehead exactly like a 


184 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


picture in Harper’s Bazar , but the family 
scorn subdued my spirit ; even Uncle Henry 
scowled at it. 

If you go to Germany, Ruth, do bring 
me an amber necklace and cross. Emma 
says they are not so very expensive in Ber- 
lin, and I think they are exquisite. Some- 
body sent her a whole set — bracelets and ear- 
rings. I tried them on, and found them very 
becoming to a dark complexion. 

You ask if I have done as I said and stud- 
ied an hour a day this vacation in order to 
advance faster next year. Well, no; I have 
so many interruptions. 

I do not see Mary Parker very often. She 
came one day and asked to hear one of your 
letters ; mother had invited her to come for 
that purpose. It happened to be an after- 
noon when Emma Nelson called, and heard 
the letter too. Mary enjoyed it greatly, but 
Emma is rather ignorant. She asked absurd 
questions — did not know where Versailles is, 
or what, whether a city or a building. 

Ruth, I do wish you were home ! Some 
way, when we are together, our two heads 
are better than one, if the one happens to 


MADGE'S JOURNAL. 


185 


be mine. I never in my life was so per- 
plexed over endless trifles as I am this sum- 
mer, because these trifles continually raise 
questions which I must decide. I suppose, 
perhaps, you would settle them in a minute 
by doing as we have always done, but I 
can’t. Of course I want to do what is 
right, but it is not natural for me to be so 
very conscientious at my age as the older 
ones of the family are. Then — there is 
no doubt about it, Ruth — we are behind 
the age in everything that regards fashion, 
and I don’t like it. Mother only laughs 
when I tell her so, and Abbey says ridicu- 
lous things. There is Abbey herself, now ; 
nobody values her more than I do, but it is 
awkward to have a person in the family who 
does a servant’s work and yet is so interested 
in all the family matters that she feels free 
to give advice. 

We had a Sunday-school picnic last week ; 
it was a beautiful day, and we went to “ The 
Grove,” as they now call that pretty patch of 
woods just west of the old factory. Every 
one in the congregation went, I think — old 
and young. I never enjoyed a morning 


186 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


more in my life. Mary Parker and some 
of her set — or our old set, as Emma Nel- 
son calls them — were there, and we roamed 
the woods together until dinner was ready. 
Mary and I found the prettiest little basin 
in the deepest woods! It was fringed all 
around with fine ferns, and it looked like a 
meeting-place for fairies. We sat there and 
talked an hour or more. 

Mary is a fine girl, Ruth, just as you have 
always said she was ; it makes me ashamed 
that I am not more ambitious when I hear 
her talk. She means to go to Wellesley 
College. Her father is rich, and I do not 
think she intends to be a teacher, but she 
says that in this age of the world a young 
girl makes a great mistake if she fails to 
get the very best education that she can 
possibly acquire, for every year the stan- 
dard grows higher. 

This reminds me of a lovely thing father 
told me about Mary Parker. You know 
Jenny Hayes, the daughter of that pale 
little dressmaker who lives in that bandbox 
of a house next the town-hall ? Jenny has 
been the best scholar in the West End 


MADGE'S JOURNAL. 


187 


school since she entered. She learned all 
they could teach her there the year before 
last, but she could not afford to pay for her 
books and tuition at the academy. Mary 
found it out, and made her father arrange it 
so that Jenny had last year in all our classes; 
you remember how she learned. Now, Mr. 
Parker told father that he wanted Mary to 
go to a very expensive school in New York 
City, but that Mary had plead with him to 
send instead both Jenny Hayes and herself 
to Wellesley College. He said that Mary 
told him that Jenny would make a noble 
woman and a fine teacher with that help. 
None of the girls know this ; they say Jenny 
is “smart,” but “only Jenny Hayes,” and 
they call Mary “ odd ;” they say it respect- 
fully, though, for I have noticed that to be 
“ odd ” and rich is to inspire more respect 
than to be “ odd ” and poor . 

While I sat there with Mary I made up 
my mind to be more in earnest. I don’t 
think a bit about being a woman, but I sup- 
pose I shall be one if I live. She is not 
dull, if she is what Emma calls “so very 
high-toned.” She can be very witty, and 


188 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


mother says she is the best- read girl in the 
town ; but you know all that. 

After dinner who should appear but 
Emma Nelson and her brother and some 
of those “ behind-the-piano girls ” ? They 
did not belong to the school, but they came 
after dinner, and remarked that the grove 
was free. I enjoyed them, for they always 
make fun, or, as Emma says, “ they carry 
on so.” We roamed off again, and Bert 
discovered that very same pretty hollow that 
we had found in the morning ; and Dick 
proposed a game of cards. Now, Buth, 
I know you will think that is dreadfully 
wrong, but really I can’t see why. Nobody 
makes a fuss over checkers or dominoes, and 
people could gamble with them or with 
straws, I suppose; Bert says they might. 
Any way, one thing is certain : almost every 
young person in what people call “ society ” 
nowadays plays cards. I don’t see any 
harm in it, and I have learned how this 
summer. Mary Parker does not play, and 
a few of her friends do not ; but even Mary 
could not prove to me that it was wrong. 
All she did say was, “ I do not play cards 


MADGE’S JOURNAL. 


189 


for this reason : Not one of the very best 
men and women whom I know ever plays 
cards, and every one of the worst persons 
I can think of does play them.” I told her 
that was not any sort of argument, because 
it left out all the immense middle class of 
good-enough people who see no harm in 
card-playing. She said I did not ask her 
for an argument, but for a reason, and her 
reason was that she wanted to model her 
character after the best patterns, not the 
half-and-half sort. But I am half and 
half ; so, after all, I am acting consistently. 
Mother said a few weeks ago that I must 
learn to think for myself on moral questions, 
and not to follow you or any one else blindly. 
I have thought and decided that several 
things are not wrong for me as I now am, 
but I am afraid I could not make mother 
understand. Any way, I have not taken 
time to tell her. 

Do you ever think, Butli, what you would 
do if you were the daughter of a rich man ? 
I would like to be that for a few years. I 
would not do just either as Emma Nelson 
does or as Mary Parker, even. I would 


190 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


dress very elegantly, be very select in the 
choice of my friends ; I would travel and 
copy the manners of the most refined peo- 
ple, so that everything I wore or did or said 
would be beyond criticism and every one who 
met me would admire me. In short, I would 
be like the young ladies we read about in 
nice novels. Of course such novels as you 
speak of are miserable things, but I have 
read lately some very fascinating ones. The 
heroines are so lovely in person, they have 
such “ rare smiles ” and such “ statuesque 
attitudes/’ and all that ; they seem to fulfill 
their purpose in life by just being. It sat- 
isfies other people merely to gaze at and 
admire them. Of course they are always 
rich. There is a romance about living like 
that which one can’t get up in the line of 
an existence like mine, for instance. I can’t 
fancy myself so beautiful that mother would 
not expect me to sweep my room every Sat- 
urday, to charge my mind with darning my 
own stockings, often wiping dishes for Abbey 
and studying my Sunday-school lesson. If 
we were rich, we would hire all that done — 
except the lessons. But this is nonsense; 


MADGE’S JOURNAL. 


191 


only I think of such tilings, not having you 
to talk to, as always before. 

Speaking of Sunday-school, I wish that I 
were in the new Bible-class. Mrs. Young, the 
bride who came to town lately, is the teacher. 
Oh, she does wear the most exquisite suits ! 
Last week her dress was pale lavender silk, 
with a white lace hat and white gloves. She 
makes her class a sort of conversation-class. 
I think they might study the lesson a little 
more, judging from accounts, but they talk 
about it most of the time. Once or twice 
they spent the hour getting up the pro- 
gramme for the entertainment at the next 
church sociable, but the superintendent 
stopped that. Mother will not hear to my 
leaving Miss Floyd’s class. She is a good 
teacher, I do suppose, for one can never ask 
her a question about the lesson that she cannot 
answer, but she has such a way of leaving 
things to our consciences. I never could 
endure that. She quotes what the Bible 
says in the way of general principles if we 
ask her if this or that thing is wicked ; then 
she tells us what it is to be a Christian and 
leaves us to measure ourselves by that stan- 


192 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


dard. Ever since I was five years old I have 
hated principles. I used to want mother to 
say, “ Madge, that is naughty ; and if you 
do it, I will whip you,” instead of saying, 
“ Good little girls never do this thing.” 
Besides, Miss Floyd assumes things. Last 
Sunday she said she had reason to fear that 
some of her scholars were trying to lead 
a divided life — that they knew what they 
ought to do, but they were not ready or 
willing to do it, and meanwhile they might 
seem gay, but they were not really happy 
or satisfied. How does she know that? 
I suppose young girls always are restless 
and excitable. Such personal talk makes 
scholars uncomfortable, even if it does not 
apply to them. I don’t think it is in good 
taste. 

Mary Parker’s class of children has been 
divided, and, as she is going away in the 
fall, she has not taken another, but has 
joined ours. She thinks Miss Floyd is 
remarkably interesting. 

Mrs. Young must be doing good, too, for 
Emma Nelson has joined her class, and she 
never liked to come to Sunday-school before. 


MADGE’S JOURNAL. 


193 


Mrs. Young had two thousand dollars’ worth 
of diamonds for her bridal present. Last 
week’s lesson was about the Exodus, and 
she happened to tell that — in connection 
with the borrowing of the Egyptians’ jew- 
els, you know, by the children of Israel. 

You will be astonished to hear that Emma 
Nelson is going away to a boarding-school, 
although she has not yet decided to what 
school. Bert says he is the one who gave 
her the start and she will live to thank him 
for it. Bert thinks she is very pretty, but 
he is always laughing at her ignorance. 
One day — as I think, out of pure mischief — 
he told her that no young lady nowadays 
was considered to have been properly brought 
up unless she had been to boarding-school ; 
that city girls always talked of their ex- 
ploits there, and showed their elegant diplo- 
mas. Emma believed every word, and now 
declares she will go one year and graduate. 
She is in fractions yet, and always spells 
Tuesday Tewsday. 

13 


CHAPTER X. 

RUTH’S JOURNAL. 

July 10. 

I THINK Cousin Jane is very amiable, for 
she has a great deal of patience with what 
I am sure she considers peculiar notions 
of mine. Every day I find some one who 
seems to have entirely different ideas of right 
and wrong from those that we have been 
taught. If I were very intellectual and 
knew how to discuss such matters fluently, 
I might get bewildered; but, being only a 
humdrum little girl who has always found 
that she came out best satisfied when she 
went along in the good old way, I get on 
quite easily. 

Only it does make me very sorry when I 
do not want to do what Cousin Jane would 
do if she were alone. For instance, yes- 
terday Mr. Raynor and she made all their 
arrangements to go to Versailles to-day 

194 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


195 


(Sunday) i-n order to see the magnificent 
fountains, which play only on Sundays. A 
large party of Americans were going from 
the boarding-house where we are. They in- 
tended to start after breakfast and go on the 
cars, spending the day and getting back to 
Paris about dark. While I heard them 
talk in the salon (as they call the parlor) 
that night I began to wonder if I were queer , 
as you say ; for not one of the party made 
the least objection to going, because, as they 
said, it was the “ only day they could see the 
display and everybody did it.” When I 
heard the Raynors agree to join them, I 
came up to my room to think it all over ; 
and I soon made up my mind that I would 
just quietly stay at home. You see, Madge, 
we do not believe that traveling for mere 
pleasure and laughing and running about 
to see sights with a crowd of gay people is 
any kind of a way to “ remember the Sab- 
bath-day to keep it holy” That granted, 
what difference does it make that the foun- 
tains play only on that day ? If it is wrong 
to break any one of the commandments, the 
mere fact that it would not be possible to 


196 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


break it except on special occasions would 
not be any reason wby we should avail our- 
selves of that one chance, would it? The 
French do not observe the day as we do, but 
what of that in our case ? I often hear that 
the French all tell lies, but no Americans 
have said to me they meant to tell untruths 
here because it was the custom of the coun- 
try. I wanted to see the fountains, and I dis- 
liked very much to seem to set my judgment 
up against the Raynors ; but I hoped to 
have them go if they wished, without any 
reference to me. In the morning they re- 
fused to stir a step without me ; then I was 
bewildered, for I saw they were annoyed and 
very much disappointed, and I never before 
felt that I was spoiling my friends’ pleasure 
by insisting on having my own way. It 
was awfully hard, Madge ! I wanted to be 
obliging and unselfish, but I kept thinking, 
“ It never can be right to do wrong, and it 
never can be wrong to do right so I said 
I co Id not go, and I told Cousin Jane just 
why. Perhaps she saw how sorry I was for 
her ; any way, she was just as lovely about 
it as she could be. 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


197 


Monday, 11th. 

Sometimes I think that if I had no be- 
lief that Sunday sightseeing and work for 
pleasure were not right I would do nothing 
of that sort on that day, because after the 
rest one enjoys so much more on the Mon- 
day. I certainly found the great park here 
at Versailles beautiful enough, with the 
flowers, the statuary and the countless in- 
teresting objects. I never even thought of 
the fountains. We saw the great palace, 
with its exquisitely-painted ceilings, with 
walls of pink and gray marbles, with floors 
so polished that we slipped on them in 
felt overshoes. I think I was most pleased 
with the pretty little palaces near by the 
grand one, for in one of these I was re- 
minded of poor Queen Marie Antoinette, 
whom, you know, I always pitied so much. 
I saw rooms where things had remained as 
she left them. In her gilded ebony piano — 
or shut in its cover, rather — was a not very 
much faded sheet of music belonging to her, 
and where she carelessly left it. In her bed- 
room was a beautiful picture of her poor 
little son. Both these small palaces must 


198 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


have been charming places when filled with 
the court-ladies. 

In the afternoon I wandered under the 
trees past a pretty stream where, on a little 
island, was a small empty temple, and then 
I came to the Swiss village that, you re- 
member, the queen built for her amusement. 
It is a group of curious little thatched cha- 
lets, or Swiss cottages, with porches, quaint 
gables and odd windows, but I could not 
see a human being in or near the cottages ; 
the only sound to be heard was the birds 
singing in the grove or the ripple of the 
water. When I peeped in a cot-window, 
the place seemed more lonesome than any 
of the grand palaces, for in these one could 
easily fancy the great people still living in 
state; but the little Swiss village was as 
mournful to me as a child’s plaything after 
the death of the child whose delight it per- 
haps may have been. 

I was standing there thinking — or, as Mr. 
Raynor says when he wants to tease me, 
“ cheating the guides for he says I see a 
great deal more than they are paid for show- 
ing, but I like to remember the little I know 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


199 


of a place when I am in it — when suddenly 
somebody right behind me said, 

“ Here I am, Sister Ruth !” 

“ It was not you, dear Madge — if it only 
had been ! — but it was Mabel Merritt, whom 
I had not seen since she left me on the 
steamer. She was more animated when she 
greeted me than I supposed she could be. 
She acts always half tired and wholly bored. 
She has not enjoyed herself much — or, I 
should say, she has not enjoyed other peo- 
ple or many things — since she landed. Her- 
self, she says, she never enjoys ; and you 
would wonder how this could be, Madge, 
if you were to hear her talk. You and I 
have so often discussed what would make 
us happy, and Mabel has, I think, every- 
thing that you have ever mentioned as desir- 
able. Her father and mother had found the 
Raynors, and they were visiting together ; so 
Mabel and I sat down under the trees for 
the same purpose. 

Cousin Jane has no patience with Mabel 
Merritt ; she says that her indifference is all 
j>retence and affectation, but I cannot think 
this. I think she feels no interest. 


200 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS . 


She began : 

“ I called you ‘ sister/ for you are a little 
like a nun and a little like a Quakeress ; 
and not much like either, on the whole, for 
to-day your eyes are bright and your cheeks 
red, and you look provokingly contented/’ 
(Tell mother that when she worries about 
me.) 

I told her that she happened to catch me 
just in a minute when I was so happy that 
all the birds might have been singing in my 
heart as well as over my head. It was a 
silly speech, for she insisted on knowing 
exactly what made me happy that particular 
minute, and I could hardly tell her. I was 
thinking of the great ladies who had lived 
here in all this magnificence, some so un- 
happy, some so wicked and unwomanly. 
I was thinking of the horrible mobs and 
cruel wars, of what an unreal thing the old 
splendor seems now it is over for ever. I 
was rejoicing that everything in my life 
seemed so sweet and good ; I mean all that 
has been, and is — my own cozy home, that 
always seems to me flooded with sunshine, as 
it looked that morning I came away ; my 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


201 


own people, so exactly as I would have 
them — father, mother, grandma, even Ab- 
bey, I was counting her in as a treasure 
there in the shadow of a palace, but I will 
venture to say she is better than most of 
the queens who have departed. I was glad 
I was young and life looked so beautiful — 
that I had been given this wonderful jour- 
ney. Then the sky that day was one of 
those blue, blue skies that put thoughts 
into me of heaven, but thoughts I cannot 
tell, because they are better than I am ; and 
if I told them, people would think I was as 
good as my thoughts and be disappointed 
later. I don’t want to tell them, either, but 
you must know, Madge, how they come and 
you want to sing, to thank God because you 
are alive and he is so good. I tried to put 
a little of this happy feeling into Mabel 
without talking much about myself. 

We found a pretty little nook, and sat in 
it for an hour. Mabel, in questioning me, 
told me at the same time much about her- 
self. Sometimes she seems to me years 
older and like a fashionable young lady 
who amuses herself with an ignorant school- 


202 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


girl; then, again, she will make me feel 
old and she will seem strangely ignorant. 
Her childhood has been such a different 
one from ours ! She lived in an elegant 
house, but scarcely saw her mother from 
one week’s end to another. She said that 
all she remembers clearly was a never- 
ending succession of servants and nurse- 
girls. Some petted her and told lies to 
save her and them from blame ; some neglect- 
ed and scared her with threats. She had so 
many toys she enjoyed none, so much candy 
that she ruined her teeth, and so much 
spending-money that she wasted it or hired 
the maids to let her do just as she liked. 
When she was twelve years old, she was sent 
to a convent to learn music and languages. 
She was taught there that the nuns were 
very pious, and yet she saw enough of their 
life and conduct to conclude that religion 
is hypocrisy with some people, with others 
it is stupidly acting according to a set of 
dull rules. From the convent she went to 
a fashionable boarding-school. I wish you 
could have heard her describe the perform- 
ances there. The pupils seemed to do every- 


RUTH’S JOURNAL . 


203 


thing except to look inside of a book. They 
regarded their teachers as a kind of upper 
servants who, because they depended on 
their salaries for support, could be treated 
with insolence or calmly ignored. Girls 
like you and me had pearls and diamonds, 
wore silks and satins, and they even gave 
grand parties, for which they ordered most 
expensive suppers. Mabel graduated at 
this school, and had a degree conferred upon 
her. She herself laughed at the absurdity 
of the thing, and said she did not know 
enough to teach a district school if her bread 
and butter depended on it — that she had paid 
for a five-thousand-dollar education, but 
she would part with it for almost nothing 
if she could sell it at second-hand. After 
school ended she had a season in society. 
You are quite right: we are very old- 
fashioned ; but I am so glad ! One party, 
one play, one beautiful gown, seems very 
fine, but Mabel says go to fifty parties, all 
more or less alike, have every night and 
day all amusement and excitement, and by 
and by all the pleasure — yes, even all the 
excitement — is done for. As for beautiful 


204 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


dresses — Well, Mabel has some things fine 
enough for a princess, or so they seem to me ; 
but she is never pleased with them after the 
first. Her mother and father are displeased 
that she so indifferently takes whatever 
comes. Maybe I ought not to say it, but 
Mrs. Merritt (or so I think) wants Mabel 
to make a great display. They are very, 
very rich, but Mrs. Merritt tells Cousin 
Jane that she does not know for what to 
spend her money, and Mabel will not help 
her. She wants fine pictures and statuary 
and bric-a-brac, but she does not know what 
is fine and what is not. She says Mabel, 
with all her education, must know, if she 
would only think about it. 

“ And that is not true,” said Mabel as she 
sat under the trees ; “ I do not know any- 
thing that is worth knowing — or worth 
doing, either, as to that.” 

I did not know what to say, for every day 
seems full of interest to me. 

“ The difference between us,” she went on, 
“ is that you have had some one to teach you 
how to enjoy yourself, while I have not been 
able to find amusement for myself. I want 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


205 


excitement — to be doing or seeing something 
novel all the time — or I am bored.” 

I said I never heard of being taught how 
to enjoy myself — that mother always said 
any girl with a healthy body and a good 
conscience could always be happy if she 
did her duty, helped her neighbors and 
trusted in God. Mabel said she had no 
duties, she let her neighbors take care of 
themselves, and she was not “ naturally 
religious then she suddenly asked, 

“ Don’t you think religion is all a mat- 
ter of education ? For instance, if you had 
been born here in some little Catholic vil- 
lage of France, do you not know that you 
would not have been a Protestant?” 

I said I had thought of that, and it 
seemed to me that, loving my mother, I 
should have believed first what she be- 
lieved ; that, growing older and finding 
back of all the mummery and superstition 
the Saviour himself, I should love him as 
now I, a Protestant, love him ; and beyond 
that I could not imagine how wise or how 
ignorant I should be. 

Then she said could I not fancy myself 


206 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


of the Jewish race and so rejecting our Lord 
Jesus Christ? Now, that I never could im- 
agine, Madge, for I always think that an 
intelligent Jew must begin to ask, “ Who 
could this wonderful man called Jesus have 
been, that millions should become his fol- 
lowers?” When he saw churches erected 
in his name, the story of his life wrought 
into all literature since he came, I should 
think curiosity alone would send him to the 
New Testament, and, reading that, how could 
he fail to find Christ to be the Saviour ?” 

“ Yet see what numbers of scholarly men 
are Jews : they surely do not remain so be- 
cause they are ignorant,” said Mabel. “ And 
see, too,” she added, “ the thousands of peo- 
ple who are called Christians, but for what 
reason it would be hard to tell : they have 
never given the thing a consideration.” 

“ I thought you were talking of being a 
Christian, not just of names?” I said. 

“Tell me the difference,” asked Mabel, 
“ between Christians in name and what 
you call Christians?” 

“There is an academy in Hempstead 
called 4 The Willis Academy.’ It was start- 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


207 


ed forty years ago by a rich man wiio built 
the house and left a fund for the institution. 
Pupils are called 4 the Willis scholars ’ often, 
to distinguish them, but nobody cares any- 
thing for the founder or gives him a thought. 
Madge and I are scholars, but our father 
is the principal. We love and honor him 
as the very best teacher in the world ; we 
are scholars in the sense that our whole heart 
is given to the one who represents the school 
to us. What honors him honors us ; what 
hurts him hurts us. Apply this to your 
question, and you will be answered/’ I said. 

Then Mabel went on asking very peculiar 
questions that I would not have supposed 
could have occurred to her. She made 
strange remarks. For instance, she said 
that the martyrs who endured death rather 
than deny their faith were Christians of 
one stamp, but that many who did not thus 
suffer were equally honest, she supposed, 
although they were not enthusiasts; and 
while I was trying to understand her she 
suddenly asked if there would be any harm 
in becoming a Jew in belief if one had no 
reality about his Christianity. 


208 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ Why, Mabel Merritt ! What would you 
say to a person who, in walking along with 
his eyes almost shut, should conclude it was 
as well to turn aside and jump off a preci- 
pice into space as to open his eyes and look 
for a safe path?” 

“ I presume I should think he was crazy,” 
she said ; then, with another of her queer 
abrupt turns which make me think she is 
not so indifferent as she is discontented, 
she asked, “Why am I not a Christian?” 

“ I do not know. Do you think you are 
not one ?” 

“lam as good as the greater part of the 
people I know. I do not wrong any one; 
I tell the truth unless politeness forbids ; I 
go to church. What ails me?” 

It is very hard and puzzling to have one 
ask you such questions. In the first place, 
I felt as if she were putting me in the posi- 
tion of somebody wise and good. Grand- 
mother could have made everything plain 
to her, while I, a girl younger than she, had 
nothing to fall back on except just the lit- 
tle I have been able to find out for myself. 
I said, 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


209 


“ When I begin to look in, I find every- 
thing ‘ails me/ or it would be so if I did 
not keep on asking forgiveness for the sins 
I have committed, and for help to do better 
and be better every new day. If you have 
told God that you want to be a Christian if 
you can, and have asked to be taught how, 
if you have read thoughtfully all the beau- 
tiful story of the Saviour’s life — what he 
did and said, how the people loved him, how 
he died — and after that you do not love him, 
why I do not know.” 

“ Perhaps what ails me is I have not done 
anything of that sort — not the first thing,” 
she said, as honestly as a child. 

We sat there together for a while with- 
out talking ; the sunshine fairly flooded the 
grove, the deserted Swiss cottages and the 
little mill-stream, near which a number of 
young girls were chattering French. By 
and by Mabel said, 

“ It would be more sensible for the man 
to open his eyes and look for the right way 
before he leaped over the precipice, but sup- 
pose he wanted to try the experiment of 
jumping — just for excitement, say?” 

14 


210 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


Now, Mabel's talk sounds very aimless ; 
but when she said this, her eyes were so 
sharp they frightened me. I wondered what 
she could be thinking of as I answered : 

“ Who would want to do such a thing if 
he were not insane ? What were we talking 
of? Oh! a person who would go over to 
the Jewish faith without trying to find out 
about the truth of Christianity. Can you 
think of anything more dreadful ?” 

Mabel then began to talk of the Jews, 
and astonished me by showing that she 
could remember what she read if she cared 
to give it a thought. But what an odd 
subject this is to interest a girl brought up 
as she has been ! She proceeded to show 
me that very many great artists and cele- 
brated musicians of this day and of former 
times are or have been Jews. Her mother 
and Cousin Jane came then to find us, and 
she stopped very suddenly what she was 
telling me in a most animated way. 


July 20. 

Yesterday at noon we went from Cologne. 
I was sorry to leave the cathedral. Mr. 


RUTH'S JOURNAL. 


211 


Raynor likes castles with dungeons ; Cousin 
Jane never tires of palaces, especially if she 
can see the dishes used by former sovereigns, 
or portraits of them in court-dresses, or gild- 
ed satin bedspreads which they once used 
on their beds. She makes us laugh by 
asking if they actually slept under them, 
and I fancy she has taken the pattern 
(mentally, at least) of several. I think 
I like cathedrals best. There in Cologne 
I used to lie awake at night to hear the 
bells ring away up over my head (we 
lodged very near the cathedral), and they 
were grand coming in the silence and dark- 
ness — not in chimes, but with one long 
musical roar of sound. As we went up 
the Rhine yesterday we could see the beau- 
tiful tower for a long, long time outlined 
on the sky. 

Late in the afternoon we stopped at a 
little place called Kdnigswinter, just on the 
water’s edge, and under the ruins of the 
old castle of the Drachenfels, where once 
lived the lady of Schiller’s ballad of ‘ Knight 
Toggenburg.’ His castle is, or was, not far 
away, and near by is the island where stood 


212 


TEE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


the convent in which she died ; so you see 
how romantic were our surroundings. We 
watched the sunset on the river, and ate our 
supper of strawberries and cream in a balco- 
ny with a veritable minstrel playing a zither 
for our entertainment — at least, he did it, and 
we were entertained. 

Coblenz. 

I am getting stronger. Last night I 
climbed halfway up the Drachenfels ; this 
afternoon I have been to the “ Queen’s 
Garden,” a pretty park. We walked along 
the river under linden trees, past arbors 
and flower-beds, and attended in the open 
air a concert given by the fine band from 
the great fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, which 
is just across the Rhine. We saw a part 
of the emperor’s household, and a great 
Prussian officer in whose honor the concert 
was given. The music was enchanting, and 
everybody enjoyed it in such a simple, 
charming way ! Young children danced 
about on the grass ; family-parties listened 
as they sat about little tables with refresh- 
ments, the mothers with their knitting- 
work. 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


213 


Oh, mother, father, every one of you, if 
all were only here! All this day we have 
moved up the river, the scenery growing 
more exquisite every hour, passing castle 
after castle high up against the sky, and 
beneath the vine-covered hills. It has been 
some special holiday, and often we passed a 
procession winding down the hills with ban- 
ners gleaming in the sunshine. 

I am thinking of Mab$l Merritt; we 
expected to meet her again here at Heidel- 
berg. I do not enjoy being with her as 
I should enjoy being with Mary Parker or 
Belle Hughes, but I feel drawn toward her 
because she is not contented or happy, when 
she might be ; or so it seems to me. After 
our talk at Versailles she returned with us 
to Paris, and seemed another person when 
we met again. Something about me must 
have displeased her, for she became very 
cool and haughty, talking to me as if I 
were years younger and knew nothing of 
the world. I do not know the world which 
she lives in, so I could not resent anything 
she said, and there was no merit in my 
keeping good-humored. When I saw her 


214 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


last, she was almost rude until the very 
moment in which I bade her “ Good-bye ;” 
then she kissed me suddenly and said, 

“ I wish I had been born in a little quiet 
village and some one. had taught me how 
to think sensibly — and what not to do.” 

I laughed at her, so she stopped with her 
hand on the door, saying, 

“ Give me the first answer that comes into 
your mind to this question : If I were Ma- 
bel Merritt, what would I do ?” 

Now, when she insisted, I had to say, 

“ I would be the best daughter I could be 
to my father and mother.” 

I had, if I told the truth, to say just that, 
because I had noticed a few little things that 
suggested it to me. She blushed and looked 
angry ; then she looked pale, and, muttering 
something, hurriedly went away. 

Mrs. Merritt is fussy and very illiterate, 
but she would like to be more to Mabel and 
to have Mabel be more to her than is now the 
case. Mr. Merritt thinks that Mabel’s edu- 
cation has made her feel superior to them, 
and he is pained. They never told me so 
in plain words, but I have found it out, for 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


215 


all that. One night I asked Mr. Merritt if 
he had visited the Louvre (a place which 
Cousin Jane says I could visit for a year), 
and he sighed with weariness as he answered, 

“ Yes, I did it this afternoon, and by look- 
ing neither to the right nor the left I accom- 
plished it pretty thoroughly.” 

That was so ridiculous I wanted to rush 
off and laugh over it with somebody ; then I 
thought, “ How mean I am ! ^ The poor man 
does not pretend to know anything about 
pictures or statuary, but he must know some 
other things well.” He did, and I learned 
a great deal about the present city of Paris, 
its institutions and its government. When I 
went to bed, he patted my head as if I were 
a little girl ; and ever since he talks to me, 
because, as he says, “ I have not got much 
education, he supposes, but I am no goose.” 
Mr. Raynor reported this compliment to me. 
When Mr. Merritt speaks of Mabel, his face 
does not brighten any, and it makes me, 
some way, sorry. 


CHAPTER XI. 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 

“ Without thy presence wealth is bags of cares, 
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares ; 

Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be, 

Nor have they being when compared with thee.” 

Francis Quarles. 

E MMA NELSON was going to give a 
party, and Madge Preston was, as she 
declared to her girl-friends, “just crazy ” 
to attend this party. As the season had 
progressed the intimacy between Emma 
and Madge had increased. Each girl had in- 
fluenced the other. Emma was quick-witted 
enough to see that Madge was not less bright 
and vivacious for being more deferential to 
her parents and far quieter in public than 
was she herself ; accordingly, a decided im- 
provement was seen in Emma’s manners. 
Now, when she came to see Madge, she 
greeted Grandma Grey politely and ap- 
peared to greater advantage. In the pres- 
216 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


217 


ence of the family she talked less, and of 
sensible matters ; so that Mrs. Preston, after 
many entreaties, allowed Madge to return a 
few of Emma’s many visits. A little against 
her better judgment, the mother had yielded 
a number of points, reflecting that Emma 
was soon to leave the town, that Madge was 
lonely without Euth, and that there might 
be no permanent results from so short an 
association. Madge was careful to have her 
new friend appear in the best light, and, in- 
deed, she insisted on passing over Emma’s 
too obvious delinquencies in order to jus- 
tify to herself her own liking for her society. 

Now, parties, as the Hempstead school- 
girls understood them, were by no means 
rare. Madge and Euth gave one almost 
every year. Sometimes early in a winter 
afternoon the parlor was full of their young 
mates, for whom Abbey would be spreading 
her nicest cookery in the dining-room ; or 
if it were in midsummer, it would be a gar- 
den-party in the shady old yard big enough 
for half a dozen croquet-grounds. But a 
party such as Emma Nelson meant to give 
was to be an affair hitherto unparalleled. 


218 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Emma, not without a hint from Madge 
what to say or what not to say, came in one 
evening and gave the invitation. She called 
it “ my little farewell visit, as I want to see 
all the girls together, you know, before I 
go away.” 

“ You will be delighted to have me visi- 
ble there, won’t you, mother?” exclaimed 
Madge, in great excitement ; and Mrs. Pres- 
ton, forgetting in her innocence that there 
are parties and parties, said slowly, 

“ I suppose you would be very unhappy 
if I said ‘No;’ so I will think about it. 
Probably you can go.” 

Madge hurried Emma into the garden 
and listened with mingled delight and ap- 
prehension to Emma’s confidences. Madge, 
for some reason which they did not dwell 
on, had been invited for five o’clock in the 
afternoon, but this was to be no “juvenile 
tea-party,” as Emma contemptuously re- 
marked. 

“You can be there early, you know, to 
help me dress and to see the preparations,” 
she rattled on. “ Caterers are going to 
provide the supper, bringing it from L , 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 219 

with regular-made flower-pieces and dec- 
orations. Father was bound that I should 
let our cook get up the refreshments, and 
he said our garden-flowers were as good as 
any the florists could supply ; but I teased 
mother until she was almost distracted. I 
want to tell of this party after I go to board- 
ing-school. The girls there, knowing I 
came from this little town, won’t have much 
of an opinion of me unless I impress them 
in some such way. Dick has engaged 
splendid music for dancing, and I do hope 
everything will go off well. He has invited 
a dozen or more real stylish young folks 
from L . I presume some of my ac- 

quaintances will be provoked, but* what is 
the use of inviting girls who have not got 
a party-dress to wear, who can’t dance, and 
who feel and act like little girls?” 

“We are not young ladies, certainly,” put 
in Madge. 

“ Well, not exactly ; but we will be 
soon.” 

“ Maybe my new white dress is not good 
enough, but it is all I have.” 

“Oh, it will do; white always passes. 


220 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


You will be all right with handsome long 
gloves and pretty slippers/’ returned Emma. 

A shade passed over Madge’s face ; she 
said thoughtfully, 

“ Possibly I may not go, after all.” 

“Oh, you must! Your mother never 
will find out — or not in time to keep you 
home,” said Emma, bluntly, as she opened 
the gate and said, “ Good-bye. Come 
early.” 

Had she left Madge then, all would have 
been well, for the latter, in a revulsion of 
feeling, was prompted to go immediately to 
her mother and explain about the party ; 
but Emma remembered a bit of town -gossip, 
and lingered to tell it. Then she repeated 
to Madge a speech that had its influence : 
“ Mrs. Young is coming over late in the 
evening to look on. She says that she does 
enjoy seeing young girls have all the fun 
they can. By the way, Madge, she says 
you are just too handsome for anything in 
that pink dress that you wear so much. She 
declared she watched you all one Sunday. 
But don’t be vain : she is given to saying 
such things. Isn’t it a pity all Sunday- 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


221 


school teachers couldn’t be as stylish and 
fascinating as she is ? But I must go 
now.” 

Madge, left alone, strolled away under the 
trees thinking how she might dress herself 
most becomingly in case she should attend 
Emma’s party. The more she imagined the 
festivities as her friend had pictured them, 
the more she desired to see and enjoy all. 

“ What possible harm can there be in 
such a thing?” she queried. “ Yet, if 
mother knew all about it, she would say 
I was ‘ too young ’ to be out to evening- 
entertainments of that sort, and she would 
not like the thing from beginning to end ; 
but I know there is nothing wrong in music 
and fun. Ten o’clock is no wickeder an 
hour than four. Dear me! I haven’t fit 
gloves or slippers. Emma said nobody 
wore anything but fancy slippers to a 
party, and those long light gloves are ex- 
pensive.” 

“ You have stood gazing at that currant- 
bush for three minutes by my watch,” ex- 
claimed Bert, close by her side. “ Are you 
composing a sonnet?” 


222 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Bert,” said Madge, slowly, “ Emma in- 
vited me to come to her house at Jive o’clock 
the day of the party.” 

“ Five in the morning?” 

“ Of course not ! And I shall have to 
be home by ten, at the very latest. If I 
go, will you promise to come with me 
then ?” 

“ Yes ; but Emma expects the fun to 
keep up later than that,” returned Bert, 
good-naturedly. 

“ I think likely that mother supposes it 
is a regular old-fashioned visit such as we 
schoolgirls always have — supper at dark 
and all of us home before ten. I — I want 
to go to this party just this once; I — ” 

“ You couldn’t go twice to it very well, 
Madge: it is for one night only.” 

She was too much in earnest to be teased, 
and went on : 

“So I believe I will not tell mother all 
about it — until afterward — because — Well, 
in plain English, she might not let me go if 
I should tell her.” 

“Would she say such parties are wrong?” 

“Well, she can’t think them wicked, or 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


223 


else I would not go ; but she would think 
such extravagance was folly. Things seem 
so to quiet people in a dull village like 
this,” explained Madge, as if she had lived 
in some grander town where folly and 
fashion ruled. 

“ That sounded exactly like Emma Nel- 
son,” was Bert’s comment after a pause. He 
stood still, whistling softly, as if her words 
had made no impression on him, but Madge 
would have been startled at his thoughts. 

Bert was a careless, rather self-indulgent 
fellow, but not yet a wild or a bad one. He 
was very easily influenced ; and when he 
came to Hempstead, it was with many good 
resolutions to study, to keep out of “ scrapes,” 
as he called boys’ foolish capers, and to profit 
by the good influences in the Preston family. 
He had never met a young girl who seemed 
to him of so lovely a character as Ruth, 
whose words he had thought much of before 
seeing Madge. He knew Madge was gayer 
and more full of spirit and daring, but he 
supposed her moved by the same principles. 
When, that morning after the drive, Madge 
asked him not to speak of their doings the 


224 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS 


evening previous, he was surprised and in 
a vague sort sorry. He saw not the least 
thing out of the way in their expedition ; 
but if Madge did not approve of it on after- 
thought, he would have respected her more 
if she had confessed it to the family. This 
afternoon he was wondering if Ruth was 
like Madge — if all girls were so tricky. 
Perhaps Ruth’s gentle talk was only talk , 
after all, and she would cover up paltry 
little deceptions just as Madge was doing. 
He had not thought it of Madge ; she used 
to be uncomfortably honest, always getting 
into mischief, but always truthful to the last 
degree. He remembered with secret amuse- 
ment his promise to Ruth not to aid or abet 
Madge in any naughtiness and to lead her 
into none. Surely he had not taken the first 
steps? A half-defined feeling of loyalty to 
Ruth made him say, 

“ I don’t see myself what fun girls find 
in performances like this one that Emma 
is planning — that is, until they are older. 
Why do not schoolgirls let fashion and 
nonsense go, and enjoy themselves without 
all this fuss?” 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 225 

“ They do, here in Hempstead ; so, you 
see, it is pure novelty that attracts me this 
time/’ returned Madge. 

Bert broke a twig from a tree and began 
whittling it; Madge wished that he would 
say something either encouraging , or dis- 
couraging in regard to her purpose, but 
he did not. She soon turned toward the 
house, and was going to her room to think 
over this weighty question of a proper toi- 
let, when her grandmother said, 

“Are you going to the prayer-meeting, 
dear ? Y our mother has gone already ; she 
had a call to make first.” 

“ I had forgotten that it is Wednesday 
evening,” said Madge. 

When Kuth was home, Madge always 
went with her to the weekly meeting ; lately 
she had let various matters keep her home. 

“ I feel so well to-day, and the evening 
is so beautiful, that I think I might venture 
to walk as far as the church,” said the old 
lady, adding, “ I did not tell your mother, 
lest I should hinder her, but I really am 
tempted to go. I enjoy these meetings so 
much !” 


15 


226 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Well, grandma, I will take the best kind 
of care of you if you are able to walk so 
far,” answered Madge, heartily ; and Abbey, , 
who overheard the conversation, appeared 
to say, 

“ Deacon Wilder is always there with 
his horse and buggy ; he’d be delighted to 
bring you home if you got over-tired.” 

“Then I will venture,” said grandma; 
and forthwith Abbey took charge of her. 
She brought her thick shoes, her “ second- 
best” lace cap, her soft crepe shawl, and 
waited on the old lady as if she had been a 
queen about to appear in court. When she 
was quite ready, she sat a while to rest before 
starting. Bert, entering the hall, thought 
how sweet and attractive she looked with 
her placid face framed in the lace border 
of her quaint silk bonnet. When he found 
where she was going, he laughingly brought 
from his pocket some lemon-drops and gave 
them to her, saying that he well remembered 
she had given him candy years before when 
he was starting for church. She smiled in 
Bert’s mischievous eyes, and said, 

“ I am pleased to have them, for I might 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


227 


get coughing. This reminds me of some- 
thing: that little boy Bert used to walk 
along to church with me and sit by me, 
keeping pretty quiet ; now he is older, and 
I hope he thinks more about good things 
than little Bert could be expected to think. 
Suppose he comes with the old lady once 
more ?” 

Madge came as she spoke, and, somewhat 
to the young girl’s surprise, Bert accepted 
grandmother’s invitation with half-playful 
politeness, and ran away to get gloves and 
handkerchief. 

“ The lad has a kind heart and seems 
easily led ; you may be able to influence 
him to walk in the Christian way, Madge, 
during his stay with us. We never know 
how our companions may follow if only we 
lead aright,” said the gentle old lady. 

Her words were making Madge uncom- 
fortable, when Bert returned, and they 
started. He plucked grandmother a tiny 
bouquet before they passed out into the 
broad, shaded, quiet street. 

It was a perfect evening — warm, still, the 
twilight falling from a tender violet-tinted 


228 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


sky and the last of a brilliant orange sun- 
set lingering in the west. When the church- 
bells began to ring, not unmusically, the old 
lady remarked, 

“ You children can’t, I suppose, realize 
that the sound of a church-bell is one of 
the sweetest sounds now on earth to me, and 
one reason is because it is the ringing that 
has echoed right along through my life for 
three-quarters of a century, always meaning 
the same unchanging truth through years 
and years of ceaseless change, always singing 
the same song of 4 Good news ! Good news of 
the precious gospel of the Son of God !’ ” 

Bert glanced up reverently into the beau- 
tiful old face with the thought , 44 Well, relig- 
ion must be a comfort to the old ” — with 
the sudden second thought, 44 But if it had 
not been something to her in her youth, it 
would not be this to her now. It has run 
all through her life in order to make her 
what she is — a rare old lady.” 

Madge? Well, Madge was also think- 
ing, but after this fashion : 44 My black-kid 
slippers are new, and mother would say I 
must not afford a liigh-heeled fancy pair 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 229 

like Emma’s. Oh dear ! how horrid to be 
poor ! Emma’s taste in dress is not half as 
good as mine, if mine could be cultivated. 
I would not be stingy, either. I think 
Emma Nelson is not very generous ; she 
boasts how she gets her dresses made cheap 
by underpaying — as mother would think it 
— her seamstress. I would give liberally to 
church -work if I were rich : a rich Chris- 
tian might set such an inspiring example !” 

They were at the door then of the Hemp- 
stead First church, a picturesque old stone 
building covered with creeping vines. The 
prayer-meeting was held in a pleasant lec- 
ture-room, and was attended by about forty 
or fifty persons, mostly of middle age. Mr. 
Edgecomb, the pastor, was a man past sixty 
and one unknown outside his little world, 
but a preacher whose plain words fell into 
heedless hearers’ hearts with a weight that 
often kept them there — a pastor whose worth 
was best known by those who most needed 
help, light or sympathy. 

Madge thought the services uncommonly 
dull. She paid attention at intervals to the 
remarks of the pastor on the unprofitable 


230 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


servant. She heard him assert that the ser- 
vant was not charged with great wickedness : 
he simply did nothing. He was punished 
for doing nothing because it was his duty 
to do something. Then Madge’s mind 
wandered to “ long gloves.” 

Bert, who had not attended a prayer- 
meeting since he was a little boy, listened 
with an undivided attention. He received 
an idea new to him : The service of God 
was obligatory, not optional. He was made 
for that service ; if he were “ unprofitable,” 
he defeated the ends of his being. 

Grandma enjoyed every word, every 
hymn, every prayer, and never dreamed 
that many of her fellow-Christians were 
touched and cheered by her beaming old 
countenance. It was not the custom for 
women to take part in the weekly meetings, 
but the pastor was not bound by rule to 
more formality than he thought needful. 
When there came a longer pause than usual, 
he said to Grandmother Grey, as simply as 
if they had been in her parlor, that her 
face was so seldom seen among them they 
would feel it a pleasure to hear any good 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 231 

word she might have in her heart to say 
for them. 

Bert glanced at her, but she looked not at 
all startled ; the withered hand that held 
his flowers lay quietly on the other hand 
as she spoke, her voice was clear and only 
a little tremulous — from age, not from any 
fear of man. 

“ I have been thinking,” she said, “ that 
God’s judgment of the servant who tries 
with his whole heart to please him will, 
after all, be according to grace, and not to 
law, else were we all condemned ; then, from 
thinking of God as my Master — as he, in 
truth, is — I fell to realizing that he is our 
heavenly Father and his Son our Elder 
Brother. Sometimes, when we talk of our 
‘ service ’ to him, the word seems strangely 
inappropriate; for we do nothing for him: 
he does infinitely out of his loving-kind- 
ness for us. Now that I am an old person, 
my mind weakens ; I do not hold well to 
connected trains of reasoning, but scenes out 
of my past life return to me like pictures. 
I have seen, as I sat here to-night, some- 
thing I saw fifty years ago. I was on a 


232 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


stage-coach which was going through the 
mountains. On our way we came behind 
a flock of sheep being driven quietly along 
the road. Our coming did not much fright- 
en them, for they knew their shepherd and 
hastened near him. There were two or three 
lambs, however, that would not follow with 
the flock, and so the faithful dogs were sent 
after them. They fled over stone walls; 
they ran here and there; they were pur- 
sued and harassed by the shepherd-dogs 
in their faithful efforts to get them back 
to the road and to the shepherd’s care. I 
thought, ‘How like that is to mortals who 
grow willful or careless in the way ! The 
troubles whose infliction often seems so cruel 
to us are the faithful messengers sent to call 
us back.’ There was one lamb, I remem- 
ber, who ran farther away and seemed fran- 
tic; it slipped on the steep mountain-side. 
It would not return, until I feared it could 
not ; then I saw the shepherd himself step 
ever the wall, and it fled no farther ; so he 
took it up in his arms and carried it back 
to safety. Is not that like our Good Shep- 
herd? I have traveled a long way since 


WHAT MADGE WANTED . 


233 


the morning of life, and I have wandered 
many a time according to my own foolish 
will ; but his love has saved me. Now I 
can say out of a full heart, 

“‘I bless thy wise and wondrous love, 

Which bids us to be free, 

Which makes us leave our earthly snares 
That we may come to thee. 

“ * I come, I wait, I hear, I pray ; 

Thy footsteps, Lord, I trace; 

I sing to think this is the way 
Unto my Saviour’s face.’” 


Soon after this the meeting ended, and a 
number of friends gathered around Grand- 
ma Grey to have a few words of neighborly 
interest. Bert and Madge, seeing that Mrs. 
Preston and the Professor were there, did 
not wait for the old lady, but went on, and 
just outside the door were joined by Abbey. 

“ I would like to have known grandmoth- 
er when she was young,” said Bert ; “ she 
must have been a remarkable woman.” 

“ I have been told that I look as she did,” 
said Madge, lightly. 

“ She is a remarkable woman now,” said 
Abbey, earnestly. 


234 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Yes, she is that. — No, you can’t be at all 
like her,” added Bert to Madge, who merely 
laughed. 

“ Maybe Madge has a look like her,” con- 
tinued Abbey, “ but, for my part, I believe 
Buth will be, just such another old — angel.” 
She brought out the last word so energet- 
ically that both young people were greatly 
amused ; then Bert said, 

“ You are philosophical, Abbey. Human 
angels are generally old, I have noticed, 
while at their best girls like Buth will be 
tricky and — ” 

“ Tricky !” exclaimed Abbey, rather hotly. 
“ Buth Preston tricky !” 

Madge said sharply, 

“ Don’t speak so loud, Abbey. What will 
people think we are discussing ?” 

Bert smiled in the dark ; he was rather 
glad that Madge was stirred by Abbey’s 
scorn, and glad that Abbey had so high an 
idea of Buth. “ A fellow likes to have con- 
fidence in people who pretend to be con- 
scientious,” he assured himself as they en- 
tered the house. 

The next morning Madge hurried through 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


235 


her domestic duties, and then, shutting her- 
self in her room, began to consider ways 
and means. The new white dress was well 
enough, but other accessories which were 
absolutely necessary must be obtained. It 
can easily be seen that with a salary of less 
than a thousand dollars a year the Profes- 
sor was not able to give his children much 
pocket-money after providing for his family. 
When food, fire and clothing were obtained, 
the parents were content; but Madge often 
sighed secretly for the knickknacks that other 
girls procured so easily. This summer she 
had felt rich, for in her purse was a crisp 
five-dollar bill that her mother and Ruth 
had “ spared ” for her. In fancy she had 
spent it over and over — so much for a scrap- 
book with a handsome cover; so much for 
wool to knit a hood for winter use ; some- 
thing for the Indian girl whom her Sun- 
day-school class was educating; something 
for a silk handkerchief for grandmother; 
the rest for a Roman scarf, or a bar-pin, 
or — Oh, fifty other things! This morn- 
ing all those coveted articles were relin- 
quished for ever, and Madge was soon hur- 


236 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

rying down town with her purse in her hand. 
Usually, when about to go “ shopping,” she 
took the whole family into her confidence, 
but on this occasion she chose to be self- 
reliant. 

“ My little black slippers were only one 
dollar and a half; I do hope bronze ones 
will not be much dearer. Emma would say, 

‘ Buy pink ones/ but I could never wear them 
to any other place, as I might wear a bronze 
pair,” she reasoned as she entered a shoe- 
shop. 

But bronze slippers were not at all cheap : 
the prettiest were five dollars ; the very plain- 
est were two and a half — “ reduced,” as the 
clerk declared, because of a tiny discolored 
spot which “ would not show in the least.” 
Madge bought these, and went on to the best 
of the few dry-goods stores in town. She 
was appalled at the price of long gloves. 
The pale-pink-tinted soft kids which she 
had resolved to have were out of the ques- 
tion, but how beautiful they were ! It made 
her cross to remember that Emma “ always 
bought them by the half dozen.” At last 
she found a pair of inferior make, but very 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


237 


pretty and within her means. She bought 
them, and turned toward home with min- 
gled satisfaction and regret. With the 
lace neck-ruffles that Ruth had left her she 
could now contrive to look presentable, but 
how mean it was to have to be pinched down 
to just so many cents or to go without nice 
things at the age one wanted them most! 
Years from now she might have money, 
but French slippers and fancy kid gloves 
would then have lost all their charms. 

The morning was rarely beautiful, and 
Madge’s homeward road led her by old- 
fashioned front-yards full of flowers, under 
trees that arched over the wide sidewalk, 
and past charming country-houses with wide 
piazzas, made more attractive by gay awn- 
ings, hammocks and bright rustic chairs. 
From one of the finest of these houses ran 
out a young girl who called to Madge as 
she passed the gate : 

“Wait a minute, Madge! I was just 
going to send a message to you.” 

“Well, here I am to take it myself,” 
returned Madge, watching Mary Parker 
tripping lightly toward her. She was a 


238 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


graceful girl with a delicate, clear-cut face 
full of expression and intelligence. 

“ I want you, Madge, to come here to tea 
to-morrow. Come very early in the after- 
noon. I have asked ten or a dozen of the 
girls to come — Belle Hughes and the rest. 
You can imagine who.” 

“ I would like to come, Mary — we have 
such grand times at your tea-parties ! — but 
Emma Nelson’s party is to-morrow, and I 
have accepted her invitation.” 

“ Oh ! have you ?” exclaimed Mary, a 
shade of surprise crossing her face. “ But 
that is later; you might come here first.” 

“I could hardly endure so much dissi- 
pation,” laughed Madge, not quite at ease. 

“ Perhaps not. Belle Hughes decided 
she could not, but she favored me instead 
of Emma. The others whom I asked were 
not invited to the Nelsons’, so our interests 
will not conflict much.” 

“You were invited, of course?” 

“ Yes, but I had already arranged for 
my own company,” replied Mary ; and 
Madge knew that only Mary’s politeness 
prevented her from saying that she would 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 239 

not have accepted the invitation in any cir- 
cumstances. They chatted a moment of 
other matters, and then separated. 

It was nearly noon ; the sun was uncom- 
fortably warm. Madge felt cross. Mary 
Parker’s parties were undeniably very de- 
lightful ; Madge well remembered games on 
the lawn, rows on the pretty pond, hours 
in the house which was as fine as the Nel- 
son mansion and full of rare pictures, books 
and curiosities. Mary’s mother was an esti- 
mable lady, and Mary’s friendship was not 
to be despised. The unpleasant thought 
would keep crossing Madge’s mind that she 
was “ refusing gold and taking pinchback,” 
as Abbey would have said — Abbey, whose re- 
marks irritated Madge unaccountably now- 
adays. As she entered the house, for in- 
stance, this very noon, Abbey began to ask 
her questions about the party and what she 
would wear in a familiar way which Madge 
chose to think impertinent, and which she 
answered very curtly. 

“ Why, daughter,” said Mrs. Preston when 
Abbey went to the kitchen, “ I am surprised 
at you !” 


240 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ But, mother, it really is none of her 
business, and she ought to know that. I 
am not always to remain a little girl want- 
ing to talk over all my affairs with her.” 

“ Abbey is never obtrusive in what she 
thinks you wish to keep to yourself, but 
she is much interested in your pleasures. 
It ‘ really is none of her business ’ that your 
new white muslin was very much wrinkled, 
but she has spent an hour or more pressing 
it beautifully smooth for you,” returned Mrs. 
Preston, very sternly. 

Madge’s eyes filled with tears as she has- 
tened up stairs to thrust the new finery into 
her bureau-drawer. She pitied herself; she 
was not faultless, to be sure, but what trib- 
ulations she did have ! To be so poor that 
she could not have proper clothes for a party, 
so strictly brought up that she could not do 
as other girls did without her conscience 
troubling her ! Yes, Mary Parker did not 
play cards or go to dances, but then Mary 
had an elegant home. Buth was good, but 
she did not like excitement; a humdrum 
time suited her. Here was a grievance 
again : the girl who would have been happy 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


241 


at home was enjoying no end of sightseeing, 
and the restless, eager one was “ tied down.” 
Then the dinner-bell rang. 

In some circumstances, Madge might have 
been very cross for the rest of the day, 
but she reflected that she had better make 
great efforts at self-control, in view of the 
party. She might not, after all, be allowed 
to attend it; but the time passed, and it 
seemed to be taken for granted that she was 
to go. 

The next afternoon, at five o’clock pre- 
cisely, she arrived at the Nelsons’. The 
house was in confusion ; servants were tack- 
ing linen covers over the rich carpets, oth- 
ers were busy with the dining-tables. Mrs. 
Nelson, in most untidy attire and with a 
soiled handkerchief about her head, was 
scolding a maid in so loud a voice that 
Madge was ashamed for her. In passing 
the Parker house, five minutes before this, 
Madge had seen Mary’s mother in the yard 
telling her gardener how to train a broken 
vine. With Mrs. Nelson’s sharp voice in 
her ears, she recalled the other lady’s gen- 
tle manner and her dainty afternoon-dress. 

16 


242 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Go right up to Emma’s room,” said Mrs. 
Nelson, petulantly, “ and tell her that I wish 
she had let the parlor furniture be as I fixed 
it, for ’tain’t half as good her fashion.” 

“ Oh, now you’ve come, do tell me what to 
wear !” was Emma’s greeting. “ Mother’s 
taste isn’t worth a sixpence.” 

With a glance about the beautiful room, 
Madge turned to the bed, which was covered 
with enough finery to supply a dozen girls 
and have each overdressed. She advised 
and selected until Emma was satisfied ; then 
the latter scrutinized Madge. 

“ That white dress is as plain as a pike- 
staff, but you look well in it,” she remarked, 
adding, as Madge unrolled a little bundle, 
“ Oh, your slippers are bronze ! I haven’t 
seen any in an age ; but if they are a little 
out of date, they are pretty. And so are 
those gloves — that is, I like the color, but I 
would have had them longer.” 

“ I could not afford any better ones,” said 
Madge, coolly. 

“Have you a fan?” 

“No; mine isn’t good enough, so I left 
it home.” 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 243 

Emma hesitated, then opened a drawer 
and drew out a pretty pink silk-and-ivory 
one, saying, 

“ I paid four dollars for that only last 
week. If you will be awfully careful, I’ll 
lend it to you. It does not match my 
dress, and it adds color to yours.” 

When Madge looked in the long mirror, 
she saw in a moment that the pink fan 
brightened her whole attire and was just 
the shade suiting her complexion. She 
accepted it gratefully. 

In the time between her arrival and the 
party Madge tried to be helpful, and Mrs. 
Nelson was too busy to let the presence of 
an outsider be any restraint on her own 
words or conduct. The young girl could 
not but hear the scolding, the loud ungram- 
matical talk of a sort never known in her 
own home. She remembered her grand- 
mother’s story, and was almost convinced 
that her mother was wiser than she herself 
even in the present case. 

Evening came, although the guests were 
so late in arriving that Madge feared she 
would have to go home before the gayety 


244 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


had fairly begun ; but about nine o’clock 
the great parlors were full and the merri- 
ment was at its height. Madge knew by 
instinct — or by peeps in the great mirrors — 
that she was looking exceedingly well. The 
young people from out of town were very 
polite to her, and her spirits rose to their 
highest level. Bert, in passing her once, 
whispered, “ You are coming on famously 
for one who does not call herself a young 
lady and about that time Madge was ready 
to declare that her enjoyment was worth more 
than it had cost of vexation and man- 
agement. An hour later she began to 
doubt this point. She was in a crowd, re- 
turning from the refreshment- room, when 
some one hit her elbow — not roughly, but 
so as to cause her to drop the pink fan, 
which in the next instant was stepped on 
and broken in half a dozen fragments. By 
whom it was done was not apparent. In- 
deed, she could not recover the broken and 
torn bits until the crowd thinned. In dis- 
may she then wrapped her handkerchief 
around them and stood apart by herself in 
the hall, where Bert found her. 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


245 


“ Come, Madge ! You must start at once 
if you mean to get home by ten. It is al- 
most that now.” 

She was glad to go without another 
thought of the music and dancing, and, 
once in the street, she walked so fast that 
Bert could scarcely keep pace with her. 
He thought that she was troubled because 
she had to meet her mother’s inquiries, 
and so he said nothing of her evident dis- 
quiet and brief replies to his talk of the 
evening’s entertainment. At the gate he 
left her, saying, 

“ I promised Dick I would come back ; 
he wants me to know those friends of his 
from L .” 

Madge went quietly into the hall, which 
she was glad to find deserted by the family. 
She ran softly up stairs, and as soon as she 
gained her own room she hurriedly took 
off her dress, that she might seem to have 
been home a longer time than in reality she 
had been. It was simply surprising how 
rapidly Madge was taking up one little 
“ trick” after another, as Bert would have 
called her petty deceptions. But her moth- 


246 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS . 


er merely paused a moment at the foot of 
the stairs, and, seeing a light in Madge’s 
room, said, “ Don’t -sit up late, dear. Did 
you have a pleasant time ?” Then she 
waited only long enough to hear the sound 
of Madge’s voice in reply before she went 
to lock the front door for the night. 

Poor Madge! On the bureau lay the 
ruins of Emma’s fan, a pair of gloves soiled 
and slit, as cheap gloves will slit, and a pair 
of bronze slippers turned purple and utterly 
ruined by the wet grass that she had walked 
through on her way home. But of her own 
money spent for nothing Madge thought lit- 
tle; what kept her awake until long after 
midnight was the fan. If Emma would be 
generous enough to make light of the acci- 
dent ! Madge had too much self-respect not 
to feel that she must make good what she 
had destroyed, if this were possible. But 
Emma was not at all generous ; she would 
not fail to remind her immediately that the 
fan was new and cost four dollars. Oh how 
angry Madge was at her lot in life that 
night! Why should she be so torment- 
ed over such things? She ought to have 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


247 


plenty of money. She tossed and tumbled 
on her bed. She remembered that her 
mother wanted so many things which she 
was going without patiently, while Madge 
had already thrown away five dollars, and 
must now throw away four more. How could 
she ever ask for it? She racked her brains to 
think of some article of value she possessed 
that she might offer Emma in exchange ; 
she had nothing that Emma would not de- 
spise. Even in the dark she winced to im- 
agine Mrs. Nelson’s comments if she failed 
to give full satisfaction. 

Next morning, when Abbey called her, 
she awoke to wonder what gloomy thing 
had happened, and she remembered only 
too soon. As she dressed slowly, conscious 
of a dull pain in her head, she would have 
liked to scold Abbey somewhat in Mrs. 
Nelson’s own fashion for daring to sing 
a hymn in a voice as joyous as it was un- 
melodious, but as she pinned her collar 
an idea came to her that changed all her 
mood. Her face almost regained its usual 
expression, and nobody noticed her silence at 
the breakfast-table. Seizing the first chance 


248 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


when she had Abbey alone with* her, she 
told her of Emma’s fan and how she had 
broken it. She did not tell her anything 
about the party — or, rather, what kind of 
an affair it was — or that she had spent her 
own money, for Abbey had not known that 
she had any. But Abbey understood it all 
the moment she saw the pink satin-and- 
ivory bits ; then how good and sympathiz- 
ing she was ! Madge could have hugged 
her, and, in fact, did just that when she 
exclaimed, 

“ Now, don’t you ever bother your moth- 
er with one word of that — never. I have 
money rusting in the bank in a way that 
is positively wicked and unscriptural, and up 
stairs this very minute is seven dollars that 
I haven’t any earthly use for. I declare, it 
is shameful, the way your mother insists on 
my taking wages, telling me I will be old 
some day. She believes in trusting the 
Lord ; yet when I ask her why I can’t do it 
in the same way, she only laughs and says 
it is a different thing — that the laborer is 
worthy of his hire, or something else. Now, 
you just take four dollars to Emma Nelson 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 249 

and tell her to buy herself a fan or a nose- 
ring, just as her heathenish taste suggests. 
You will make me real happy by using this, 
and you just keep still about ever paying me. 
I’m as much interested in you as I could 
be in my own sister, for your folks are my 
folks; I never had any other.” 

In quick compunction for her late thoughts 
of Abbey, Madge cried, “You are the best 
creature that ever helped another out of a 
tight place and for emphasis she gave 
her a kiss on her fat, rosy cheek. 

A few hours later Emma had been seen 
and pacified ; she had received the four dol- 
lars quite graciously, inasmuch as she had 
repented buying the fan and now proposed 
to get a silver bangle instead, although she 
kept that decision to herself. Madge had 
put the other relics out of sight for ever, 
and resolved to banish all thoughts of the 
affair. It had not “paid” in any sense. 
She was glad Emma was going away; she 
did not desire to keep up their intimacy. 
Emma was stupid; everything was stupid. 
In a few weeks school would begin, and 
that was stupidest of all. 


250 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


Madge’s mother never asked her about 
the party, and never heard anything that 
led her to think Madge had deceived her. 
Everything went on as usual from that day. 
Or was there a difference? Mrs. Preston 
used to wonder if Ruth had been the one 
who had done three-quarters of the little 
helpful deeds about the house ; certainly 
few of them were done nowadays. Some- 
body used to read all the interesting items 
of news to Grandma Grey, used to see that 
every vase was full of fresh flowers, that 
the Professor’s black neckties were renewed, 
that the mother’s simple toilet had tasteful 
touches given it when she went to church 
societies. Madge never refused to help if 
she were on the spot and the need of help 
were pointed out, but she made a great many 
calls on her schoolmates and was indifferent 
to trifles when at home. Gradually, Abbey 
did everything previously left undone, and 
she did it all so cheerfully that no one but 
Madge took note of her dreadful blunders 
in the literary services. 

One day, about ten days after Emma’s 
party, Belle Hughes called on Madge. 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


251 


“Why were you not at Mary Parker’s 
the other afternoon ?” she asked ; then, not 
waiting for an answer, she went on : u We 
had a delightful time ; mother says I have 
talked of nothing else since. We had such 
a merry time on the lawn ! Then at tea we 
were so surprised ! We knew it was Mary’s 
birthday, so we had planned to give her an 
album with all our photographs, and she was 
very much pleased. Well, Mrs. Parker may 
have found out our secret, or*she may not ; 
any way, at each of our j)lates was a little 
gift because it was not our birthday. Mine 
was a dainty little work-basket. There was 
a lady there who had been a missionary in 
China fifteen years ; she was visiting Mrs. 
Parker, having been her friend years ago 
at Mount Holyoke. I wish you could have 
heard her stories ; she was very entertaining. 
We laughed, and cried too, before she had 
finished. Oh, that reminds me ! Mary Par- 
ker wants to know if Emma Nelson has de- 
cided to what boarding-school she will go ?” 

“ No ; she had not found out when I saw 
her last. Her father will let her go where 
she chooses,” replied Madge. 


252 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ Well, in that case, Mary is going to set 
an innocent little trap for Emma, and she 
wants our help.” 

“ What do you mean ?” asked Madge, her 
curiosity becoming aroused. 

Belle, who was as warm-hearted as she 
was vivacious, replied : 

“ Mary, you know, is so unselfish she is 
always trying to help somebody. Well, she 
was saying to me that Emma was young and 
bright, able te give herself any advantage, 
and she — Mary — did wish that she could 
get into a small school where there was an 
atmosphere of true Christian refinement, 
where Emma would really learn and would 
become what she might be, but is not. Now, 
your mother told Mary once of a very small 
private school kept by one of her former ac- 
quaintances, and she praised it highly. Will 
you find out all about it and speak of it 
to Emma? Meanwhile, Mary will invite 
Emma to tea with her and do her best to 
influence her toward that one.” 

“ Why, Mary — She — They have very 
little acquaintance — they are not alike,” 
stammered Madge. 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 


253 


“Mary has a great deal of tact,” said 
Belle, simply. 

Madge, musing a moment, understood it 
all. Emma laughed at Mary, but secretly 
she admired her ; she would accept the invi- 
tation, would heed what Mary said. Mary 
from the purest motives would strive to win 
Emma to her views, and very likely, instead 
of a year of nonsense in some fashionable 
boarding-house called a “ school,” Emma 
would have two or three years of help and 
real culture of heart and brain. 

“ Mary will accomplish it easily,” she said, 
with a lack of enthusiasm that disappointed 
Belle. “ I will tell Emma everything that 
mother knows in favor of the place.” 

After Belle had gone she sat lost in 
thought. She had rather plumed herself 
lately on the secret consciousness that by 
reason of her mental superiority she had 
weighed Emma Nelson in the balance and 
found her wanting; in other words, Emma 
had failed her. Was there another side to 
the thing ? She had been Emma’s friend 
all summer; she was wiser, more refined, 
a member of a Christian family : had she 


254 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


failed Emma in any way ? Here was Mary 
Parker, upon whom Emma had no claim ; 
Mary, who was all that Madge was, and far 
more, — Mary Parker was eager to give Em- 
ma the very best help that one human being 
can give another, help for mind and heart. 

“ Madge,” said Johnny, suddenly appear- 
ing, “ what is champagne ?” 

“ Why, a kind of wine.” 

“ Did you ever see any ?” 

“ No.” 

“Tommy North says it looks like cider. 
He says Dick Nelson had a party at his 
house lately, and they had champagne in 
the library — at Dick’s house, and not Tom’s 
— and that Dick and some fellows from out 
of town got ‘ high.’ Tom said that his sis- 
ter said she heard Bert was there, and Bert 
says, ‘ Nonsense !’ I don’t believe he was 
there, do you? Oh, say, Madge! can I 
have that ball of twine in your work-box ?” 

“ Yes, and don’t repeat such things as that 
nonsense, Johnny, unless you want to make 
trouble for Bert.” 

“ Oh, I shall not speak of it,” said John- 
ny, going after the cord. 


WHAT MADGE WANTED. 255 

It was an impossibility for a girl like 
Madge to go on in her present thoughtless- 
ness for any great length of time without 
some qualms of conscience. After Belle’s 
visit and Johnny’s report, she was troubled 
lest she might have been blameworthy in 
not trying to keep Bert away from Dick 
Nelson’s influence ; as a first move toward 
better things she resolved to warn Bert 
against temptation. Now, had her own 
conduct of late been entirely above re- 
proach, such an interference as this would 
have come with a little better grace. Not 
reflecting on that fact, she acted on her first 
impulse, and, seeking Bert, began to cate- 
chise him in a way he at first found rather 
amusing. Perceiving that he failed to take 
the matter as seriously as she wished, Madge 
took very high moral ground, and began to 
lecture him as only a perfectly faultless in- 
dividual could with propriety have done. 
He asked her if she had ever heard of a 
certain useful kitchen-utensil which called 
another vessel of a similar sort dark-com- 
plexioned. Provoked by this, Madge, who 
could not bring one definite charge against 


256 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Bert, insinuated that she had reason to be- 
lieve that he was not careful enough in the 
choice of his associates. To this he made no 
answer, but, smiling in a most exasperating 
way, he said, 

“ There is a minstrel show coming to town 
next week, Madge. If you are very anx- 
ious to attend it, I will put a ladder under 
your window ; and when all is over, I will 
see you safely home at midnight. It is no 
matter about me ; I am not prejudiced my- 
self against such amusements.” 

Had Abbey heard the sharp dialogue that 
then ensued, she would certainly have re- 
called the time when these same young per- 
sons pelted each other with tea-grounds. 
Unfortunately, grandma was not at hand 
to bring the two into a better mood on this 
last occasion. 


CHAPTER XII. 

RUTH’S JOURNAL. 

Chamouni, August 6. 

A S I write I have only to lift my eyes and 
see Mont Blanc, its top a spotless mass 
of ice and snow. I look, but I may not tell 
you what I feel, for I remember you warned 
me, Madge, that you would certainly skip 
“ emotions ” if I put any in this journal. 
Next I look down into the near street, 
swarming with tourists and alpenstocks. 
A group of Englishmen with white veils 
around their hats have just been having 
their photographs taken in the road ; one 
is on a mule with a mountain-guide by his 
side. I wish I could see the result, for 
every time that the glass was uncovered 
the mule lifted his hind-leg and kicked. 
Yesterday morning we were at Martigny, 
from whence we started at seven o’clock to 


17 


257 


258 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


go over the Tete Noir pass. We had a 
Swiss driver, Pierre Frossard, who talked 
anything better than English, an open car- 
riage for four, a decent red horse and the 
leanest old white one imaginable. First 
came rather wild but beautiful scenery for 
a few hours. The rocks were covered with 
bluebells, small violets and fern ; goats with' 
bells climbed up and down ; but after a 
while there seemed to me much too small 
a space between our wheels and the slope 
into gorges beneath. The road would go 
up so gradually that we would not realize 
how high we were until we began to de- 
scend and the carriage seemed to push on 
the old white nag’s legs, making them trem- 
ble suspiciously. I heard a guide belonging 
to another party inform Pierre as he passed 
us that something was broken about the un- 
der-part of our carriage, and Pierre hushed 
him with the remark that the “ ladies need 
not know it.” After that we naturally pre- 
ferred to walk much of the way, and there 
came a part of the road where I, at least, 
w r ould not have cared to ride with the surest 
horses or the strongest carriage. The air 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


259 


was bracing, and the day one of clear sun- 
shine. One side of the mountain rose up in 
gigantic walls, shutting out the sun, and the 
road was just wide enough for the carriage, 
and a few inches more, while down, down, 
far below, a torrent was rushing over great 
boulders. Before we went down and around 
two sudden curves the white horse had to be 
taken off the front, tied behind, and cogs 
put on the wheels lest the whole concern 
should plunge into the abyss. About four 
we reached a region of little vegetation ; enor- 
mous stones were scattered everywhere, and 
everything was silent and solemn. In full 
view was the Mont Blanc range, and away 
above us bare gray rocks looking like vast 
cathedrals with their towers in the sky. 
Toward sunset the snow-covered mountains 
were tinted most exquisitely pink and pale 
violet. We came into the village about six ; 
and when mother reflects that I had been 
walking almost all day, she will see that I 
am not growing weaker. My headaches are 
gone ; when I awake now in the morning, I 
feel as if I were just made and every part 
of me were fresh and in working-order. 


260 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


Cousin Jane has ceased to look at me as 
if I were about to drop to pieces in her 
presence if I sustain the least shock. She 
is too good to me, however. 

We did not meet the Merritts at Heidel- 
berg, and heard nothing of them after leav- 
ing Paris. To-day I went out to take a lit- 
tle walk about this village, which interests 
me much ; and when I began to get tired, 
I stopped in a queer old shop full of every 
variety of Swiss clocks. I had seen there 
a very cunning one small enough to put in 
my trunk without crowding out other things, 
and cheap enough to buy for your room 
(cheap enough for me to buy, I mean). 
So I went to get it, and while the man was 
making sure that it was in order I went 
looking among his dusty curiosities. A lady 
and a gentleman were standing at one end 
of a kind of aisle of the old rambling shop. 
I took no notice of them as I approached 
until I heard her speak in a voice that 
startled me. It was so exactly like Mabel 
Merritt’s voice that I went nearer. The 
gentleman, who was talking very low and 
rapidly, as if urging some matter on his 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


261 


companion’s attention, turned, and, seeing 
me, I imagine that he suggested to the lady 
that they move on. When they started, I 
saw plainly that it was Mabel. I did not 
like the man. He had a very dark, foreign 
face; he was well dressed, and his manner 
was, I noticed, rather elegant ; but when he 
drew Mabel away, he laid his hand on her 
arm as if he had some claim. She did not 
see me, and I wish I had not seen her. 

Geneva, 9th. 

The evening of the day I saw Mabel in 
the shop she called at our hotel with her 
mother and father; she was very absent- 
minded and cool toward me. Mrs. Merritt 
said they had not met any one they knew 
since they left us in France. I had not 
said anything to any one of that dark man, 
but I wondered what it meant. 

nth. 

I understand it all now, and I am sorry 
for Mabel’s parents, and sorry in one way 
for Mabel herself, although she does now 
seem a great deal older and farther away 
from me than ever before. The day she 


262 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


came to Geneva she shut herself in her 
room, saying that she was tired and wanted 
to rest Mrs. Merritt seemed very lonely, 
and so Cousin Jane and I tried to amuse 
her. Last evening we were sitting together 
in our pleasant little balcony, which over- 
looks the water, and Mrs. Merritt, turning 
to me quite abruptly, said that she did wish 
that I could “ help ” her to “ bring Mabel 
to her senses.” I must have looked as sur- 
prised as did Cousin Jane, who noticed the 
tears filling Mrs. Merritt’s eyes ; for, draw- 
ing her chair close to the bench where we 
sat, Mrs. Merritt told us what she meant. 

When Mabel was a pupil in that fashion- 
able boarding-school of which I told you, 
she cared more for her music lessons than 
for any other study, and made better prog- 
ress in music than in anything else taught 
there. Her teacher was a man of fine 
musical talents, polished in manner, ten or 
fifteen years older than she, a Frenchman 
and a Jew. Mabel was his favorite pupil, 
and he gained a great influence over her. 
When she left school, he prevailed on her 
to keep up her music lessons; he accom- 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


263 


panied her often to concerts, and at last her 
parents began to fear that he was becoming 
more friendly than they thought desirable. 
Mabel ceased her music lessons at their 
request, and the young Jew did not come 
any more to the house, but Mabel used to 
go to services at the synagogue and visited 
at the house of friends where she met him 
frequently. Up to a certain time she did 
not act deceitfully toward her father and 
mother, but she simply put them out of the 
account in that strange way she has of doing, 
and she acted exactly as she saw fit. When 
they began to be alarmed and to look into 
the matter, they were shocked to find that 
she wanted to marry this musician, and was 
actually considering whether or not she 
would renounce Christianity and declare 
herself a believer in Judaism. Of course 
they were greatly troubled, for, in the first 
place, they disliked the man personally. 
Mrs. Merritt believes that he cares far more 
for Mabel’s fortune than for Mabel herself. 
He has tried by every means in his power 
to proselyte her, and the poor girl, who does 
not believe anything intelligently because 


264 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


she is almost entirely ignorant of what Chris- 
tians think or know, is so infatuated that her 
mother says it seems to her very heroic and 
romantic to give up what she calls ‘ popular 
traditions 9 and return to a ‘ grand old 
system of law.’ She never has talked to 
me as her mother says she can talk — very 
fluently, with a repetition of what this man 
has taught her. Well, when they could not 
argue with her, they forbade her having any 
communication with him, and in order to di- 
vert her mind they planned this European 
trip. She is taking no interest in it, and 
her mother says she has reason to fear that 
Mabel is disobeying them and secretly cor- 
responding with him or with his friends. 

As Mrs. Merritt talked I remembered 
suddenly our conversation that day at Ver- 
sailles and how odd I then thought Mabel’s 
allusions to the Jews. I was touched as her 
mother told how she loved Mabel, and how 
she now wished she had kept her more with 
her and not tried to “ get into society.” At 
heart Mrs. Merritt is a tender, heavily- 
burdened woman who has neglected her 
daughter while she was really sacrificing 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


265 


herself for her in a mistaken way. She 
says that she used to long to stay quietly at 
home and be just a good housekeeper, wife 
and mother like women who were not rich, 
but people said she must get into society. It 
would have been comical, if it had not been 
really pathetic, to hear her tell how hard she 
had tried to be “ stylish ” and to “ cultivate 
herself and pa,” as she calls Mr. Merritt, 
and how nothing had come of it. 

She had talked a long time before the 
recollection of that moment in the shop at 
Chamouni flashed across my mind. Who 
was that dark man ? He did look like 
a Jew. I asked if Mabel’s friend were in 
Europe, and Mrs. Merritt said, “No, indeed, 
he is not, or we would not be here.” 

They are going to-morrow for a different 
Swiss trip from ours, and I shall not see 
Mabel for a while. Perhaps it is just as 
well, for, whatever her mother thinks, I am 
the last one to “ bring her to her senses ;” 
I could far more easily feel with and under- 
stand her mother now than I could put my- 
self in sympathy with Mabel — at least, it 
seems that way to me at present. Still, 


266 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


even when her mother talks, I wonder at the 
fact that one thing troubles her so deeply, 
and not another. She believes the man is 
a fortune-hunter, and it distresses her that 
she cannot make Mabel believe that if she 
were poor he would not care for her. The 
fact that Mabel would deliberately turn her 
back on the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to 
redeem her — the Saviour who himself said, 
“ Whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
will I also deny before my Father which is 
in heaven,” — this does not seem to fill her 
with horror, as I should think it would. 
Not to be a Christian is with her not the 
awful thing, but the belonging to a race 
whose people keep pawnshops, have long 
noses and are not tolerated in the finest 
hotels. Oh, Madge, I feel like a little 
chicken that has just cracked its shell, and 
who finds the world a very queer place. 


Verona, Sept. 6. 

I have written you such full letters I had 
to neglect my journal, but I will begin it 
in this curious old place. I have walked 
Cousin Jane around the city until she is 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


267 


secretly longing, I fear, to get me away ; 
but I am fascinated with the narrow, wind- 
ing streets, the queer architecture, the Ro- 
man gateways, the bits of ancient wall in 
the new one, the forum, or market-place, 
with its fountain six hundred years old in 
the centre. Of course I went looking for 
the places with Shakespearean associations ; 
and oh, the dirt and the odors around the 
Capulet mansion were fearful ! I fancied 
you remarking that if Romeo often sere- 
naded Juliet in such an atmosphere it was 
no wonder that he longed to be cut up into 
little stars and scattered around promiscu- 
ously. I wish Abbey could see the man- 
sion where we dwell; I would delight to 
hear the report she would give of it. Its 
outer walls are of pink-and-white marble, 
in the pattern of bedquilts that I have seen. 
The rooms oj^en on galleries around a court- 
yard payed with cobblestones, and through 
curtains hung before our doors we watch 
comers and goers or the children playing 
at a fountain where the water spouts from 
the mouths of grotesque animals into stone 
troughs. The floors of our rooms are of 


268 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


cement which looks exactly like petrified 
hash, but hash with a great deal of fat 
meat in it. 

Yesterday we were in the coliseum, which 
some historians say is older than the Roman 
amphitheatre, and which is very wonderful 
to me, not having seen the latter. This 
seated over twenty-two thousand people in 
those fearful days of the martyrs. We 
roamed the long galleries under the seats, 
saw the doors where the gladiators came 
out, the dens where the Christians were 
kept, and the equally comfortable ones for 
the wild beasts. Then Cousin Jane met a 
party of Boston people with whom she be- 
came acquainted in Paris, and they seated 
themselves for a chat. I slipped away and 
climbed up above them into the emperor’s 
seat. I sat there thinking of so many 
things — of the strange changes that had 
been going on for ages and ages while these 
old stones had been here, of the countless 
lovely days like this when the sky over it 
had been as blue and beautiful ; I thought 
of a country undiscovered when this build- 
ing was already an ancient ruin — of one lit- 


BUTH’S JOURNAL . 


269 


tie corner of that country which I remember 
everywhere and at all times. Then I dis- 
covered that more people had joined the 
group about the Raynors, and at that mo- 
ment Mabel Merritt appeared by my side 
as unexpectedly as she has done once or 
twice before. She was dressed very ele- 
gantly, with rather too much silk and lace 
for these miserable thoroughfares (but 1 
forget : she usually rides), and she wore such 
brilliant diamonds at her neck and ears that 
I told her, as they flashed in the sunshine, 
that she did much more honor to the empe- 
ror’s seat than I in my plain dark flannel. 
She laughed and greeted me with more 
warmth than usual. 

“ I am ever so glad to find you here. I 
have not seen you since I saw you in that 
shop at Chamouni,” she said, sitting down 
close beside me. 

“ Then you saw me ? I did not suppose 
you knew I was there.” 

“ Of course ; and you are a wise little 
girl that you kept your own counsel.” 

I did not know what to say until I re- 
solved to ask, 


270 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ Was there any reason why you wished 
me not to speak of your being there ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then perhaps I would have done better 
to have told of it.” 

“ You did just right. What a queer old 
place this is ! I suppose you know all about 
it. What were those dens down there for? 
The places where they kept the wild beasts 
which made sport for the emperors in the 
days of the gladiators : is not that what the 
guide-books say?” 

“ Yes, and sometimes young girls like you 
and me were thrust into those dens because 
they would not give up their faith in Christ. 
Just fancy that ! Every seat in these long 
circling rows filled with cool and laughing 
sightseers ; an emperor where we sit ; from 
that low portal over there one of us walk- 
ing out alone, across the amphitheatre ; then 
another opening made, and a lion creeping 
forth.” 

“ Could you ever have done it,” she asked ; 
for I think we had both turned pale at our 
fancy. 

“ I think we could ; for, of course, if we 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


271 


were not Christians we never would have 
been brought to this peril. But you, being 
one, would realize what your faith meant, 
and—” 

“ What would your faith mean to you if 
you were compelled to make such an en- 
forced choice ?” she asked. 

“ It would mean that this Jesus Christ 
whom I called my Saviour loved me — a poor 
defenceless girl — -just as if I were the only 
creature for whom he came to the earth to 
live and suffer, that he had died to redeem 
me from a death worse than any brief agony 
could be. It would mean my love to him — 
weak, but still a love as strong as the very 
best I had in me. Some great writer says, 

4 We only believe as deep as we live ’ — real- 
ly believe, he means; well, really believing 
what I have spoken of, our life could not be 
separated from our belief, and we must die 
for our faith. But over and above everything 
else, Mabel, when we came to that last step 
out of the dungeon, I know we would have 
left our conscious, fearful selves behind us 
for ever. In such times, the Bible declares, 
Christ’s strength is sufficient for us; the 


272 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


emperors, the lions and the earth would not 
be so real as the heaven opening for us.” 

I was thinking out loud rather than talk- 
ing to Mabel ; and when she suddenly burst 
into tears, for a moment I could not under- 
stand, until she said, 

“ My life is a miserable affair, and, as you 
say, that is the reason my life amounts to 
nothing.” 

“ No, it is not ; for in another sense we 
only live as deep as we believe, or, to be 
plainer, we can’t live strong, sweet, satisfac- 
tory lives unless we believe in something 
stronger, sweeter and better than we are ; 
and that something is the gospel that our 
Saviour gave us.” 

Now, Mabel could not think I was preach- 
ing — as you may think, Madge — because I 
was very sorry for her. She seemed help- 
less and miserable as she sat there in the 
sunset twirling a diamond on her finger 
until it flashed like a coal of fire in the red 
light. I wondered that Cousin Jane did not 
go home, for she never stays out at this most 
beautiful hour of the whole day for fear of 
malaria; but last night she was too much 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


273 


interested to care, so we were alone a while 
longer. 

“ After all,” said Mabel, “one might die 
for a principle, and yet in living not find 
any inspiration or comfort in it — the prin- 
ciple, I mean.” 

I told her that grandmother was always 
saying that not a principle, but a personal 
Saviour, was the Christian’s real inspiration, 
and that she liked to quote the verse : “ What- 
soever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, 
and not unto men ; knowing that of the 
Lord ye shall receive the reward of the 
inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” 

“If ever you get home, you tell that 
grandmother of yours that she makes me 
perfectly wretched. You are bad enough, 
but she must be just dreadful — or a saint,” 
said Mabel, getting up impatiently. 

I pulled her down and coaxed her to tell 
me what made her so unhappy. She half 
tried to repulse me ; she laughed and cried 
hysterically, and then she told me everything. 
I am very glad — not because I was curious to 
know her story, but because she may “ come 
to her senses,” as her mother says. 

18 


274 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS . 


Now, Madge, I shall never send you this 
part of my journal unless I have -Mabel’s 
consent ; so I can write here what I see fit. 
You said one day last spring, after reading 
a new novel, that you wished “some other 
girl would have a love-affair and tell you all 
about it, for it must be very interesting.” It 
is not so ; it seems a little silly — yes, a good 
deal silly — and a trifle tedious to hear about 
in detail. Mabel looks at that dark man 
in a very romantic light, but I do not think 
it is at all romantic for him to be showing 
her how to deceive her parents ; and I have 
told her just what I thought. He may be 
a very wonderful musician with a grand 
career before him, but he does not act like 
a gentleman if he skulks around after Ma- 
bel when her people suppose that he is 
across the ocean. 

Before Mabel got very far in her story 
I told her I would not engage to keep any 
secrets of which I could not approve. She 
had concluded to let her mother know he 
was in Europe, or she did conclude to do it 
as we talked. The trouble is Mabel is all 
confused in her ideas of right. She has 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


275 


read so many novels that she seems to imag- 
ine that if some line of conduct is very 
startling and unheard of, the fact that it is 
romantic is its justification. She has looked 
at what she calls this man’s “genius” and 
“struggles,” her own perplexity and the 
“obstacles” to their engagement, until she 
has lost sight of the fact that she is torment- 
ing her father and mother, getting very 
deceitful herself and making the very dis- 
content she feels. She says I don’t sympa- 
thize with her perplexities as a girl older 
and of more experience would do, but I 
am old enough to know that what she needs 
first is to see things as they are. 

I am sorry for her, and I like her more 
and more. She says this Jewish musician 
came to Geneva, where his sister is living; 
and when he found Mabel, he was trying 
to persuade her to leave her parents to go 
to his sister, then declare her determination 
to adopt the Jewish religion and persist in 
remaining with his people until they were 
married. He was very sure that her parents 
would forgive her for the step when it was 
too late to prevent it. When she let him 


276 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


think this was not probable, he ceased to 
urge her to leave them. She imagines this 
is noble-minded of him ; I am unchari- 
table enough to believe that he feared she 
would be disinherited. A man who would 
keep showing her how to cheat her father 
and mother would not be so careful of their 
feelings. I told her that too, and she was 
almost angry. 

Mr. Raynor suddenly appeared and asked 
us if we were anxious to see the coliseum by 
moonlight, or if we would have our dinner 
and wait until we were in Rome for the 
moonlight. Cousin Jane arrived to say we 
must hurry back to our dinner, and she 
looked at me and muttered something about 
quinine and malaria. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 

“Every-day religion is the foundation of thoroughness.” 

O NE day not long after Belle Hughes’s 
call Mary Parker came to hear the 
news from Ruth, and to ask Mrs. Preston 
various questions about Mrs. Allen’s school, 
in Millbridge. She learned from Mrs. Pres- 
ton that it was an unpretending school kept 
by the widow of a clergyman. Only about 
fifteen — or, at the most, twenty — pupils were 
taken, and these were very faithfully taught 
and carefully watched over. They boarded 
in a roomy old mansion which was exceed- 
ingly homelike and cheerful, the school be- 
ing in one wing of the building. The town 
of Millbridge was not unlike Hempstead, 
only older and rather more aristocratic. 
When Mary heard Mrs. Preston say that 
it was the summer home of the governor, 
and that both his daughters were in the 


278 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS . 


school, she treasured up the item. A trifle 
like that would influence Emma Nelson 
when the character of the school itself 
would weigh nothing in her balance. 

As Madge listened she began to wish 
that Uncle Henry would propose to send 
her to Millbridge; it would be something 
new and mildly exciting. She was tired 
of Hempstead, of the academy and the rou- 
tine of daily life ; in a new place she would 
make herself happy and admired. Uncle 
Henry would probably give her a nice 
outfit like Ruth’s and she could turn over 
a new leaf. 

Much to her satisfaction, Uncle Henry 
came into the room just then, and sat in 
his own peculiar corner with his newspaper. 
He did not read, however, but quietly lis- 
tened to the conversation. Madge at once 
began to ask interested questions, and Mrs. 
Preston gave a detailed account of a week’s 
visit which she once made to Mrs. Allen’s 
school. 

“ Oh, I wish I could go there,” exclaimed 
Madge, all the time secretly hoping that her 
enthusiasm would move Uncle Henry ; but, 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 


279 


much to her disappointment, he did not, 
when Mary went away, refer to the matter. 

A week later Emma Nelson announced 
that she had decided to enter “ Madame” 
Allen’s school on account of its being select 
and taking only the daughters of wealthy 
or distinguished families. Madge was thor- 
oughly discontented after a few conversations 
with Emma. She did not think of the prof- 
it which Emma might derive from her new 
associations ; she could not get beyond an 
envious wonder why her friend should have 
every whim gratified, while she herself had 
nothing to her mind. 

“ I never have a choice of anything,” she 
said to herself one afternoon as she sat rock- 
ing restlessly in her grandmother’s great 
chair in the pleasant hall. “ Other girls 
do as they like once in a while ; my life is 
all along a dull, monotonous line, and I am 
tired to death of it.” 

That very day Madge had a “ choice ” to 
make. She was still rocking away with a 
cloud on her pretty face when her mother 
entered the room and, sitting beside her, 
said, 


280 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“Sometimes, Madge, the very thing one 
is wishing for comes.” 

“ I never found it true ; my wishes just 
stay wishes,” said Madge, gloomily. 

Her mother smiled a little sadly as she 
replied : 

“And now your wish is to run away from 
your home and your mother. Perhaps it is 
to be granted, after all.” 

“ What ? Uncle Henry will — ” began 
Madge, excitedly. 

“ Uncle Henry will not — at least, this 
year.” 

“ Then what do you mean, mother ?” 

“ This morning,” said Mrs. Preston, “ I 
was surprised to receive a letter from Mrs. 
Allen, for she has so little time in which 
to write that she seldom or never writes 
unnecessarily. I think I have told you of 
Mrs. Allen’s early life ?” asked Mrs. Preston, 
somewhat irrelevantly, or so it seemed to 
Madge. “ She was a poor girl, left an 
orphan when very young. She was a nurse- 
girl, then a seamstress. When about sixteen, 
she was sewing for a lady who, remarking 
her intelligence and good sense, offered to 


MADGE’S CHOICE. 


281 


get her a place in a seminary where she 
might work for an education. She accept- 
ed the offer gladly, and became the most 
thorough impil in the institution. She is 
a lady, but she has no false pride or foolish 
notions of anything connected with a young 
girl’s training for her life-work. Because 
I knew her when she swept a schoolroom, 
she trusts me to understand the letter that 
she wrote me this week.” 

“ What did she say in her letter?” asked 
Madge, much puzzled. 

“She told me of her school and of its 
prosperity, but by this last she does not 
mean financial prosperity. She pays too 
high salaries to her excellent teachers to 
make money, but then her object is not 
money-making. Now, every year, as Mrs. 
Allen tells me, she has among her pupils 
some one young girl who is striving as 
she herself once strove to get the best instruc- 
tion within her power. She gives her all the 
privileges enjoyed by the wealthiest girl of 
her whole number, and she plans so this cho- 
sen pupil shall not feel herself an object of 
charity. Mrs. Allen earned her own tuition 


282 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


by sweeping and dish- washing, but she has 
now competent servants for such duties. 
What she does expect of her pupil is cer- 
tain clearly-defined services. She acts as her 
assistant in writing business-letters, she does 
her errands in the town, she receives callers 
whom Mrs. Allen does not wish to see, she 
carries out her wishes and plans, and is 
always interested in the welfare of the school. 
All the time she needs for herself is ensured 
to her ; beyond that she serves Mrs. Allen. 
Now, the purpose of this lady’s letter was 
to say that if I knew of any young girl who 
wished to join her school under these con- 
ditions she would gladly receive her and 
feel it a privilege to help her make a true 
woman of herself. She did not make a 
direct proposal, but she gave me delicately 
to understand that a daughter of mine 
would be made very welcome.” 

Mrs. Preston added not another word, 
but sat with a very thoughtful look on 
her motherly countenance. 

Madge’s face was like a mirror, reflecting 
each emotion — first surprise, then faint dis- 
appointment, and even contempt, then ques- 


MADGE ’S CHOICE. 


283 


tioning thought. She did not speak for 
several minutes: 

“ I would very much rather go as a reg- 
ular pupil.” 

“You would be a regular pupil.” 

“ Yes, but one without any responsibility 
— as Uncle Henry might send me, for 
instance.” 

“ Well, dear, you have full liberty to 
decide the matter ; the choice rests with 
you. Your uncle Henry lias read this 
letter, and the opinion that he gives strikes 
both your father and me as very wise. He 
says that if, after full reflection, you decide 
to go to Millbridge in the way here proposed, 
you have his approval, because you will be 
thrown on your own resources and must 
learn much self-control. He says — and, 
unpleasant as it may sound to you, his 
words are true — that you seem to him sin- 
gularly undisciplined and immature. He 
says, also, that if you prefer to remain at 
home and make the most of yourself in the 
time to come, in a year or two — just how 
soon depends on you — he will send you 
there as what you call a ‘ regular scholar 


284 THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 

he would not think it wise to send you in 
that way at present. Now, Madge, don’t 
decide hastily; count the cost. I myself 
would not send you away from home in 
any other way or to any other place, but I 
am perfectly content to have you stay in 
the home-nest. If you go, don’t go because 
Emma Nelson is going or because it strikes 
you as a novel step ; if you stay, be sure it 
is from no silly pride. If you go earning 
your way, your position will honor you in 
proportion as you honor it. By all means 
stay at home if you cannot go with the res- 
olution to do your best ; otherwise, you would 
defraud Mrs. Allen, bring discredit on your 
parents and keep some other young girl 
from enjoying privileges which you fail to 
improve. Take several days to think, for 
I cannot let you reconsider a decision once 
made.” 

With a gravity that her mother was glad 
to see Madge began to ask a great many 
questions ; then, her mother being called 
away, she went up stairs to meditate. What 
her reflections were in the days that followed 
can best be learned from her journal: 


MADGE'S CHOICE . 


285 


August 25. 

How I wish, Ruth, that you were here to 
help me decide! Mother will not say one 
word to influence me, and I do not know 
what I want myself. Grandma Grey is so 
artless I know her mind ; she thinks there 
is no place like home. She says life slips 
away so fast that some day a happy young 
girl awakes to the knowledge that her child- 
hood’s home has vanished off the face of the 
earth. Of course an old person looking 
back takes such doleful views as these ; and 
in the same way Abbey, who has no family 
of her own, naturally enough fancies that I 
ought to be perfectly satisfied. For my 
part, I am restless and feel the need of a 
change. I have not been like myself since 
you went away. I have done some things 
that were rather foolish, but there is no use 
in my dwelling on them. If I go to Mill- 
bridge, I mean to do great things. I shall 
study and take a higher place than ever be- 
fore in my school-life. I mean to do just 
exactly right, too, and be a power among 
the girls. I have about concluded to go. 

Uncle Henry says he will give me the 


286 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


wherewith to get my outfit; but, oh dear! 
there are so many horrid useful articles — 
flannels, overshoes and all that — I am afraid 
my dresses will have to be very plain. 

I do not agree with my mother on one 
point at all : I do not see that there is the 
least use in my telling Emma Nelson just 
how I am entering Mrs. Allen ’s school. 
Mother says that a simple explanation now 
may save me annoyance hereafter — that my 
time will not be my own out of school-hours, 
and that Emma and others will make de- 
mands on it if they do not understand. I 
tell mother I can explain when occasion 
requires, but if I tell Emma now she may 
not understand ; later she will. The fact 
is, Ruth, I do not mean to tell Emma or 
any of the others. Mrs. Allen is mother’s 
friend, and it will be easy enough for me to 
seem to help her out of affection. I know 
I shall like her. Girls are so queer and 
proud sometimes ; I will not be looked 
down on as a sort of a charity-scholar, or 
even as one paying her own way. I am 
not ashamed that sensible people should 
know it, but schoolgirls are not sensible. 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 


287 


I do not believe I shall be missed here at 
home half as much as you. After you went 
away there seemed to be so many things for 
others to do — little things. 

For a time after Madge’s inopportune 
reproof Bert treated her with marked cool- 
ness, but this could not be of long duration : 
each was too fun-loving to dwell under the 
same roof and not enjoy the other’s society ; 
but Madge never again undertook to influ- 
ence Bert, and Bert once for all lost faith in 
Madge as a girl of any unusual uprightness 
and truthfulness. He thought her clever, 
agreeable, warm-hearted and not any more 
deceitful than he himself was, perhaps, but 
certainly “ she need not,” as he assured 
himself, “ attempt any missionary work ” 
on him as a subject. 

As the weeks went by Bert stood in 
great need of a friend able to influence 
him aright, for Dick Nelson attached himself 
to the younger boy with a persistent atten- 
tion which was both flattering and fascinat- 
ing. Dick had plenty of money, command 
of horses and a knowledge of all varieties 


288 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


of amusement which the village and country 
could supply ; Bert was witty, ready for any 
adventure, and had an air of city breeding 
particularly pleasing to Dick, who rather 
despised the Hempstead fellows as “ coun- 
trified.” Still, there was a difference be- 
tween the two which was marked. Dick 
was already a fast young man ; he could toss 
off his social glass, knew how to bet at races, 
to gamble for gain, to talk fluently of the- 
atrical matters, and how to tell stories of 
a sort never heard in Hempstead parlors. 
Bert was only a wide-awake boy — not awake 
to any realization of the earnestness of life, 
but alert for fun, eager for new ideas, ready 
to follow where the most alluring guide 
should lead. 

Dick Nelson never came to visit the Pres- 
tons, and Bert never talked of him. The 
Professor frequently said to his wife that 
the boy was doing remarkably well, and that 
when school began he would undoubtedly 
acquit himself with honor. The Professor 
knew nothing of boys outside of the school- 
room. If they were intelligent, respectful, 
always prompt at the table, at prayers and 


MADGE’S CHOICE. 


289 


in at bedtime, he supposed all must be well. 
If Bert had any mad escapades that summer, 
the Professor never knew it. That he must 
have done something which came to Abbey’s 
knowledge may be inferred from an inter- 
view between them which was occasioned 
by somewhat peculiar circumstances. 

No one had laid down any rules for Bert’s 
conduct, because he fell at once into all the 
family ways. For instance, the house was 
generally closed at ten or at half- past ten, 
and Bert was always ready to retire with 
the rest of the family. How was any one 
to know that after he had cordially bade 
them all “ Good-night ” he frequently wait- 
ed until the house was still, then pushed up 
his window, swung himself lightly out on 
the roof of a veranda, thence to a tree, down, 
and off for an hour or two more of fun? 
He had indulged in this feat a good many 
times, when one beautiful moonlight even- 
ing he dropped out of the tree almost into 
Abbey’s lap — or, rather, into a pan of po- 
tatoes which she calmly sat paring. 

“ Beautiful out here, ain’t it ?” she re- 
marked. “I thought I’d get this much 

19 


290 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


ahead on my breakfast while I was wait- 
ing for you.” 

“ For me?” 

“ Yes. I don’t get time to talk to you 
much daytimes, and I thought you could 
spare me a few minutes this time o’ day, 
considering you don’t mind loss of sleep.” 

Bert was silent with surprise. 

“Why don’t you go out at the front door 
or stay out until you get ready to come in ?” 
she continued, mildly, holding up a potato 
in the moonlight to see if it were nicely 
pared. 

“ Oh, ten o’clock is too abominably early 
for a fellow to turn in such nights as these.” 

“ Why don’t you say so, then ? You 
never used to be such a sneak ?” 

“ Oh, come, now, Abbey ! Don’t be un- 
pleasant.” 

“ A body would think that a boy who had 
nothing to do from daylight until dark but 
to amuse himself might be satisfied without 
fooling away half the night. Maybe if I 
was another boy I would think you were 
pretty smart, but, being a stupid woman- 
creature, I declare I can’t. You don’t honor 


MADGE ’S CHOICE. 


291 


the Professor, who trusts you ; you leave out 
of the question your folks, who sent you 
here to learn something worth knowing ; 
and you cheat yourself.” 

“ What are you talking about, Abbey ?” 

“ About your riding round the country 
nights with Dick Nelson. There ain’t a 
first-class man in the town who does not 
turn up his nose at Dick. From the day 
he put off roundabouts and began puffing 
at a cigar to this time, when he spends his 
father’s money in treating the town-rowdies, 
Dick has been and is a fool. You never 
have amounted to much yourself in the 
past, but you ought to have sense enough 
to know that you may in the next few years 
keep your father from being ashamed of 
you. When you begin school in the fall, 
you want to study, I take it. Dick will be 
no help to you. He was discharged for dis- 
graceful conduct when he was only fourteen 
years old, and he never has been inside the 
school since.” 

“ I declare, Abbey, v ou would be a grand 
one to lecture on morals in the winter course 
at the academy,” said Bert, who was leaning 


292 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


against the trunk of the tree with his hands 
in his pockets. 

It was not possible to get angry at Ab- 
bey, she looked so comical sitting erect in 
a kitchen chair, the moonlight playing over 
her stout figure, the knife which she flour- 
ished oratorically and the potatoes which 
she was neglecting in her earnestness. 

“Oh, you may laugh, but some day you 
will find out this : every creature here be- 
low can make a little or a big effort and 
better himself, or he can do nothing and 
worsen — ” 

“ Worsen ! What’s that, Abbey ?” 

“ You know, if it ain’t in the dictionary. 
.You’re in the first stages of the process, I 
reckon.” 

“Abbey, I am surprised at you! Here 
you have lived all your life in the family 
of a teacher ; you might have been a high- 
ly-educated lady to-day. You must have 
neglected your mind and let it worsen .” 

Abbey gazed off in the moonlight a while ; 
then she replied : 

“ No, I don’t believe I was made for that ; 
I’ve got sense, but nothing more. I didn’t 


MADGE ’S CHOICE. 


293 


fetch any intellect into this family, and I 
can’t take none out of it. I do try every 
year to make better bread and cake, to sew 
nicer seams and to make folks around me 
comfortable ; I pray for grace to do my 
kitchen work, to nurse Grandma Grey and 
to help Mrs. Preston as if each day was go- 
ing to end my work. No, I was cut on a 
rough pattern, and can’t be made into any- 
thing very fine ; but you can be a man. In 
your place I would make one, and the way 
to do it isn’t to sneak off nights after a 
puppy like Dick Nelson.” 

“ Suppose I go back to bed,” argued Bert; 
lazily. He had come out that night almost 
against his inclination, but drawn by a half 
promise to Dick. 

“ Then I shall take in my potatoes and go 
to bed myself. I shall say nothing to any 
one if you mend your ways, and Mr. Pres- 
ton will go on thinking as he said yester- 
day — that ‘ young Raynor is an honest fel- 
low, and will be a credit to his father.’ ” 

“ Well, now, see here, you excellent old 
girl,” returned Bert : “ if I saw fit to go on 
a lark to-night, I should go, for all your 


294 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


threats to tell tales; but I think myself 
that I had better slack up a little in my 
gay career. I don’t admit, however, that I 
was about to do anything of the sort that 
you accuse me of premeditating. I have 
always been deeply interested in — ah ! — 
ornithology ; and for all you know I came 
down here in the cool of the day to cap- 
ture a potato-bug in the interests of science.” 

“ Then science will have to wait until the 
season for ’em comes around again, and in 
the mean time you can take considerable 
sleep.” 

“ Abbey,” whispered Bert, with great 
dignity, “ I will retire, but a word of admo- 
nition in your ear first : It may not be the 
season for potato-bugs, but neither is it the 
hour for paring raw potatoes. I fear for 
you, Abbey ; no well-regulated young woman 
would seek a moonlit retreat in this way if 
she were not in love. Promise to bring your 
potato-pan out here no more in the hope of 
meeting the widower Simpkins, and I will 
not reveal your secret to Mrs. Professor;” 
then Bert darted up the tree, leaving poor 
Abbey choking with indignation and act- 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 


295 


ually fearful that Bert believed the charge 
he had brought against her, for Mr. Simp- 
kins was the one person in the world whom 
Abbey was ever tempted to despise. 

Bert stayed awake until very late, and he 
gave more thought to his ways than he had 
given for many weeks. Abbey’s words had 
made clear to him certain admonitions of 
his own conscience. He had not been en- 
tirely thoughtless during the summer. Soon 
after he entered the family Johnny had in- 
nocently revealed to him the terror which 
Grandma Grey felt when she first heard of 
his coming. Now, Bert had been at once 
attracted by the lovely old lady, and it 
pleased him to see how soon he had won 
her heart. He waited on her in the merri- 
est but most gallant manner possible, and 
she liked to talk to him just as she talked to 
the girls. He never was irreverent when she 
talked of sacred things in the tender, quaint 
manner natural to her, and much that she 
said he remembered. He would have been 
astonished to have been told that a feeble 
old lady and a servant were the two persons 
who were having a strong influence for good 


296 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


on his character, but so it was. Before 
morning he had made a very sensible resolu- 
tion : If he broke at all with Dick Nelson, 
he must be outspoken. He made up his 
mind to see Dick the next day, and when 
the latter would ask the reason of his non- 
appearance the previous evening to tell him 
that he had come to Hempstead to study 
when vacation should end. Vacation, for 
him, had ended ; he proposed now to turn 
over, as Madge had expressed it, a “ new 
leaf.” 

The morrow came, and Bert was true to 
himself. He made the whole matter per- 
fectly plain ; no excuses, no subterfuges. 
In entire good-nature he announced that he 
could not afford to act like a fool any more 
weeks in that year. Dick could have ridi- 
culed a timid fellow, recaptured one who 
had made meek or feeble efforts to shake 
him off, but the sudden bold common sense 
which Bert showed abashed him. He made 
a futile attempt to prove to Bert that he 
could study and yet have time for being 
as “jolly ” as they had been in the past, but 
Bert assured him that he “ had not the brain 


MADGE 'S CHOICE. 


297 


to grapple with two questions at once.” He 
expected to be jolly, but it must be along tlie 
line of the business that brought him to 
Hempstead. They parted without ill-feel- 
ing, and the intimacy was never resumed. 

August 31. 

I think, Ruth, that my journal will be 
more interesting when I have something to 
put in it, and that will be in about ten days 
if I depart for Millbridge. I am as enthu- 
siastic now about going as I was cool at the 
outset. Emma Nelson has found out a great 
deal in various ways about the school, and 
I am sure we will like it. We mean to 
room together if possible. Did I ever tell 
you, Ruth, that Bert Raynor and Dick 
Nelson were rather intimate? I was to 
blame, perhaps, at first for not telling Bert 
what a reputation Dick had in town ; how- 
ever, when I learned how far the intimacy 
had gone, I talked to Bert about it. He 
was quite indignant at my interference, as 
he seemed to think it, but I know it really 
did him good, for he seems to have dropped 
Dick now entirely, and is getting ready for 


298 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


the beginning of school with an eagerness 
that delights father. 

September 7. 

We have had a domestic thunder-clap : 
Abbey is going to leave us. Everybody in 
the house seems stupefied, and Abbey goes 
about crying and talking in the most hyster- 
ical manner. Last night a plain-looking 
man called .here and asked for mother ; he 
said he was a farmer from Michigan who 
had come East on business, and that he 
came to us at the request of a poor woman, 
a neighbor of his. He went on to state that 
fifteen years before this woman, then a widow 
with three little children, was supporting 
herself by sewing in Wickham, twenty 
miles from here ; she was attacked with 
small-pox and taken to the poorliouse. In 
the mean time, one child had died >yith 
croup. She could not get work again, peo- 
ple being foolishly afraid of contagion. At 
last a respectable man and wife offered to 
adopt Abbey, and her mother resolved to 
take the other child and go to relatives West. 
She did not give Abbey away, and meant, 
when able, to get her back. Her relatives 


MADGE'S CHOICE . 


299 


could not help her, she was ill again three 
years in a public hospital, her little boy 
died ; so things went with her from bad to 
worse, until she got well enough to sew 
again. In the mean time, she had lost all 
track of Abbey, for the man who took her 
died, and his wife, who was left poor, put 
Abbey into the asylum in Hampton. A few 
months ago this woman heard that Abbey’s 
mother was living West, and that she had 
made efforts to find her. She wrote tell- 
ing all she knew, and then inquiries at the 
asylum led to the discovery that Abbey was 
with us. This farmer, who was about com- 
ing East and must pass through Hempstead, 
agreed to come and see Abbey. Her moth- 
er is sixty years old, broken down and hard- 
ly able to earn her bread. She makes no 
claim on Abbey, but she wants her to know 
that she never meant to desert her, and of 
course she does hope that Abbey will do 
something for her. Abbey was only four 
or five when she saw her last, and she had 
been told later that she had no mother ; so 
the recollection of her had almost faded out 
of her mind. This man brought with him 


300 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


some notes that her mother had given him 
— simple records of things which she fan- 
cied Abbey would remember ; and she does 
remember : she says everything is un- 
doubtedly just as the man says. * Now she 
does not hesitate a minute ; she says her 
duty is to start for the West as soon as she 
can make her plans, and from this time on 
she expects to support her mother. When 
our mother asks her if she does not wish 
she had worked for nothing or given away 
her wages in popcorn-balls instead of hav- 
ing it in a snug little bank-account, she 
throws her apron over her head, laughs a 
little, and cries a great deal more. Uncle 
Henry says he considers her one of this fam- 
ily, and when any of us take a new start he 
fits us out ; so without any ado he has 
bought her a new trunk and has ordered 
mother to get her everything else she needs. 

What are we going to do without her, 
Ruth ? I thought Abbey was a fixed fact. 
I expected she would always go on mak- 
ing biscuit light as feathers, mending every- 
body’s clothes and keeping us laughing 
with her oddities. I have had a few of 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 


301 


her duties to attend to this morning, as she 
is naturally greatly excited, and I really am 
aghast to think of the multiplicity of stupid 
little tasks there are to be done in a family 
like this. I positively never realized that 
lamps must be cleaned and filled, that rugs 
had to be shaken, everybody’s bed made 
every morning, and every single miserable 
little dish washed after every meal. But 
Abbey liked work ; so, after all, she may 
have done more than is necessary. 

Yes, Abbey was going from the only 
home she had ever known — from friends 
who loved and appreciated her and to whom 
she clung to with all the ardor of an intense- 
ly affectionate nature. At noon the 5th of 
September she was to leave them. There 
was not a corner of the sunny old house 
which she did not visit in the time between 
her decision and her starting — visit to work 
or to weep in. It was Mrs. Preston who 
packed her trunk and made her ready for 
going. Abbey herself would hem new dish- 
cloths and make new kitchen curtains, 
would sort out dried herbs for grandma 


302 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


and clear-starch every white cap and lace 
handkerchief that the old lady possessed. 
She insisted on putting the last touches to 
Madge’s things, and every few moments she 
would drop everything and flee. In the 
warm gloom of the garret, her face hidden 
in some cast-off garment, she would think 
of the pleasant past and picture the future. 

In the first excitement Madge had said, 

“ Abbey, you might send your mother all 
your savings, and not go yourself. Your 
money would keep her very comfortably, 
and you know she can’t miss your compan- 
ionship, when she has never had it in the 
past.” 

Abbey sat a moment in thought before 
she replied : 

“ I’d be ashamed to pray and say ‘ Our 
Father in heaven ’ if I had somewhere a 
poor mother that I was offering money to, 
and so saying, 4 Take this instead of love.’ 
If she hasn’t been much to me, she has 
wanted to be, and could not; if I could 
now be something to her, and would not, I 
should despise myself. No, it would not 
be any giving or any loving if I did not 


MADGE'S CHOICE. 


303 


just give myself, all I am and have and 
all I can do. I could not be a Christian 
if I just pleased myself that way.” 

So the last day came; and if anything 
could have comforted Abbey, it would have 
been to see how one and all showed their 
affection by words, tears, gifts and warm 
praises. When she was actually gone, John- 
ny said he felt as if he “knew now what a 
funeral was like,” and he mournfully in- 
quired of Madge if she intended to go 
away herself now just the same. 

“Why, of course, Johnny! What dif- 
ference can Abbey’s going make with my 
plans ?” 

“ I thought it might make a difference 
about the work, you know ; mother can’t 
do it all, and the doctor has forbidden 
Grandma Grey to do anything that will 
overtire her. Uncle Henry told Abbey he 
guessed you would stay home now.” 

“ Why, we will hire a servant, Johnny, 
of course. She won’t be Abbey, but she 
can do the work.” 

“ I suppose we could ; I never thought of 
that.” 


304 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


It struck Madge as supremely absurd in 
Uncle Henry to advance the idea that she 
should stay at home. Should she neglect 
her education to do kitchen-work ? But as 
she reflected more she grew nervous, wonder- 
ing what her mother would have to say upon 
the subject. That evening she opened the 
matter by saying, 

“ I suppose now, mother, we shall have 
to get along with a disagreeable Irish girl 
in the kitchen. Will you try at once to 
find one?” 

“ No. I have been thinking of this ever 
since Abbey planned to leave us. For 
more than double the pay that Abbey re- 
ceived I could not get a person capable of 
doing half the amount that Abbey did in 
the house. She was one of us, and worked 
with and for us out of love, not for money. 
Everybody assures me that for the wages 
we can give I can find only an ignorant 
Irish girl ; if she did not steal, such a girl 
would probably waste and destroy, help lit- 
tle and vex me constantly. We must live 
economically ; our means are so limited 
that we can allow no margin for broken 


MADGE ’S CHOICE. 


305 


dishes, spoiled food, wasted fuel and contin- 
ual leaks in the kitchen.” 

“ But what will you do, mamma ?” 

“ A great deal more than I have done in 
the past ; but if my health is spared, I hope 
to accomplish it;” then she added, “The 
family will be smaller. Johnny will fetch 
wood, coal and water; grandma has always 
wanted to do more mending than Abbey 
would let her do.” 

“ Yes, the family will be smaller,” re- 
peated Madge, a little eagerly. She was 
glad to think that her absence would be 
a help, for so it seemed less incumbent on 
her to consider what her presence might 
effect. However, she gave her mother 
abundant opportunity to ask her to remain 
at home ; and if she were asked, she resolved 
to sacrifice herself. She even tried to draw 
from her mother some opinion as to her 
going from home under the changed cir- 
cumstances, but Mrs. Preston was absolute- 
ly silent on this point. 

When Madge went to her room, she was 
worried. She assured herself that she 
wished to do right; but if she could go to 
20 


306 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


boarding-school, she did wish she could for- 
get the “ horrid ” dusting, lamp-cleaning 
and knife-scouring left behind her. How 
“ mean ” for a lady like her mother to be 
so bothered ! “ Why on earth did not that 
poor useless mother of Abbey’s die and 
leave them in peace?” If only they had 
money to hire plenty of servants ! How 
“ horrid” to think of doing housework for 
the first time in her life, just when she saw 
the way open for her to improve herself, to 
get the higher education it was every young 
girl’s duty nowadays to obtain if she could 
find the means to educate herself! Cer- 
tainly, if it were right for her to remain at 
home, her mother would advise her, and not 
leave to her the responsibility of choosing. 
It was a duty to improve one’s talents when 
young. She had been heedless in the past ; 
she could not neglect her studies hereafter. 
If Abbey, now, had only been anxious for 
an education, she might have been able to 
earn a large salary as a teacher, whereas 
she could only — only, out of love, give 
herself. That seemed to Abbey to be the 
one thing she must do, and Abbey said she 


MADGE ’S CHOICE. 


307 


must if she were a Christian. Abbey and 
Ruth had a way of settling things that she 
did not find to he one habitually occurring 
to her. In that note, for instance, which 
Ruth left in the drawer, she wrote that a 
Christian life “just means asking God to 
teach us his will, and then doing it ; asking 
him to mark out a way for us, and then 
going in it; and loving him all the time 
because — ” 

Madge thoughts ran off into reflections 
that if she had not prayed about her affairs 
the matter of the boarding-school had seemed 
to her mother providential, and — Oh dear ! 
how tiresome it was to have to be everlast- 
ingly settling moral questions instead of hav- 
ing a grand time without any fuss or hin- 
drance ! How queer that Grandma Grey 
did not utter one word either for or against 
her leaving home, but only gazed at her 
with a wistful sort of tenderness on her 
sweet old face! Perhaps she had been 
asked not to influence Madge in any way ; 
then, forgetting how lately she had longed 
for a “choice,” Madge fell asleep wishing 
that such decisions never had to be made. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

RUTH’S JOURNAL. 

Pisa, September 25. 

M Y journal will get to be a journal all 
about the Merritts instead of about 
myself, but I am sure this will not matter 
to you, Madge, for you always like to hear 
about other people’s lives. Then I write 
everything that I do in the letters to the 
whole family. 

From Verona we went to Venice, you 
know, then to Florence, where again we 
met the Merritts and again Mabel avoided 
me. In fact, she not only shunned me her- 
self, but she so managed matters that I was 
never left a moment alone with her mother. 
One day it occurred to me that she did this 
because she herself had not told her mother, 
as she promised to tell her, about that young 
Jew and how he was in Geneva. I made 


308 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


309 


an opportunity, and asked Mabel if this 
were true. She was very cool and haughty, 
while she admitted that she had not yet been 
open with her mother. She fully intended 
that her parents “ should know the whole 
thing,” she said, “ from the beginning to the 
end,” in a few days, and I need not give 
myself the least uneasiness on her account. 
As she talked to me in a hard, dry tone with 
her head high and a way as if she were try- 
ing to get rid of a meddlesome child, I could 
not believe that not three weeks before she 
had been with me searching through the 
book-stores for a New Testament, telling me 
she meant to know what she was tempted 
to give up before she gave up anything. 
When we found the book, she was as sim- 
ple as a child in her desire to read it. 

Now, I cannot endure the thought of in- 
terfering with any one’s private affairs, but 
I did feel an unaccountable dread of some- 
thing all that day. Mabel was one moment 
so excited and talkative, then her face would 
grow dark and sullen. Once or twice she 
looked up almost in terror when I spoke to 
her. In the afternoon I asked her to go 


310 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


with us to the cascine , or park ; she refused, 
saying her head ached, but she urged her 
mother and father to go in such a vehement 
way that they seemed surprised. While we 
were discussing the park a servant brought 
Mr. Merritt several letters and two tele- 
graphic despatches. He opened one, and 
made a loud exclamation. I started to go 
from the room, but before getting out of the 
door I had to know that some business trou- 
ble had befallen him. Before long he called 
Mr. Bay nor, and made no secret of it to him. 
A great stock speculation in which he was 
engaged had gone contrary to his calcula- 
tion, and a man whom he trusted to act in 
his interests during his absence had betrayed 
him — at least, so he believed. At any rate, 
Mr. Merritt had lost an immense amount of 
money and the other man had become rich. 
The letters and messages which Mr. Merritt 
received were so puzzling and contradictory 
in details that he was almost beside himself. 
He is a large, full-blooded man, and after the 
news came his face seemed purple. He 
strode up and down the rooms and talked 
incessantly. One moment he declared he 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


311 


must start for home immediately ; the next 
he said he could form no plan until he re- 
ceived other letters. Mr. Raynor told us 
that even if he had lost all that money he 
was not then a poor man as we would esti- 
mate poverty, but he was no longer rich. 

Mrs. Merritt was terribly worried at her 
husband’s excitement and rage, but Mabel 
was very calm and womanly. She tried to 
soothe her father and suggest anything and 
everything to quiet him. The loss of the 
money did not seem to trouble her ; in fact, 
I had not seen her appear so natural in sev- 
eral days. One would have supposed some 
excitement had been taken from her instead 
of so great a change having come upon their 
prospects. 

Mr. Raynor stayed with Mr. Merritt the 
rest of the day, trying to be of use to him — 
or, at least, of comfort by showing his sym- 
pathy ; and Mrs. Merritt, like any sensible 
woman, cheered him as well as she could. 
He did not sleep that night, and in the morn- 
ing more letters excited him afresh. About 
an hour after these came we heard a strange 
disturbance in the rooms occupied by the 


312 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Merritts, which were near ours-— a heavy 
fall, and then loud screams. We rushed 
across the hall, and found that Mr. Mer- 
ritt had fallen in a kind of apoplectic fit, 
brought on, of course, by the worry and 
thought of the last twenty-four hours. 
There was an excellent English doctor in 
the hotel, and everything possible was done 
for him. In a day or two he looked quite 
well, and, as his wife insisted, was well. We 
can see a difference : he is weak and almost 
childish. The letters that continued to come 
irritated him while he read them ; then he 
seemed to drop them out of his mind. The 
doctor told Mr. Raynor he would have him 
better physically and perfectly competent 
soon to attend to his business affairs, but 
that he must make his will and quickly do 
whatever he had to do, for he was a doomed 
man. 

I begged Mr. Raynor to tell this plainly 
to Mabel, for I had an idea it might be best ; 
but I had no thought of the effect it actually 
did have. Every bit of her sullenness and 
indifference disappeared, and she now de- 
votes herself to her father in a way that 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


313 


seems to delight him. He was not a man 
with what Miss Elder used to call a “ large 
range of ideas he always liked to know 
about other Americans and little bits of 
harmless gossip of every-day things. Ma- 
bel used to be sarcastic about his “ spread- 
eagle notions/’ but after his trouble she 
would chat to him by the hour of little 
amusing matters. She never failed to read 
Galignani’s Messenger , a paper full of these 
items. She declares that the loss of all that 
money is not of very great consequence. She 
tells her father that, with his influence and 
knowledge of the stock-market, he can make 
another fortune easily enough ; this cheers 
him. Then she tells her mother that they 
have plenty of property to live in some 
quiet, pretty village at home. She says 
they can live now like other people, with- 
out the bother of a houseful of servants 
and the trying to be stylish in the latest 
fashion. Mrs. Merritt, I really believe, 
finds a relief in that idea. 

Yesterday we all came to Pisa together. 
After having dinner Mabel and I went 
to roam about the beautiful cathedral, full 


314 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS 


of rare paintings, old mosaics and no end 
of curious things that I will tell you about, 
such as the bronze lamp, in the nave, which 
suggested to Galileo the theory of the pen- 
dulum. When we came out of the soft 
gloom of the place, it was late enough for 
all the beautiful buildings to seem bathed 
in a golden atmosphere. If you could have 
seen the Leaning Tower then against that 
background! The place was very quiet; 
only a few children played in the sunshine, 
and an old woman selling fruit teased us at 
regular intervals to buy all her stock. 

Suddenly, Mabel said, coloring very red, 

“I want you to give your opinion on a 
letter which I have received. I have told 
you so much of my affairs that I might as 
well tell you the conclusion. I think that 
it is a very perfect letter — of its kind,” she 
added, with a queer expression, almost a 
sneer; then she said, “Read every word, 
and, if you can, read it, as the saying is, 
4 between the lines/ ” 

“Is it a love-letter?” I asked. 

“It is from the person I told you of,” 
she answered. 


Cathedral and Leaning Tower of Pisa. Page 314. 










RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


315 


Now, I supposed a love-letter would be 
“awfully sentimental,” as a matter of course; 
but for a while I did not exactly under- 
stand the sense of this one. It was full of 
foreign high-flown complimentary nonsense. 
As I read I saw that Mabel had informed 
the writer of her father’s trouble and losses, 
and that he was under the impression that 
Mr. Merritt’s whole property had been swept 
away. He made it very plain that he now 
agreed with Mabel that “ filial obedience and 
affection required her to sacrifice her happi- 
ness to theirs;” he renounced “all claims 
on her attention, or her thoughts even;” 
he must return to his duties and engage- 
ments in America, and he wished her “a 
future of uninterrupted happiness.” 

“Well?” she said when I gave the letter 
back. 

“ The first part is very poetical, and the 
last part very — practical,” I said. 

“If ever a girl was a fool — if ever one 
was about to make a most terrible mistake 
— I was that girl the day that father was 
taken ill in the hotel. I had agreed to 
meet that man and his sister that afternoon 


316 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


at the banker’s, and to go back with them 
to Geneva. From his sister’s home I was 
to write that I had firmly resolved to adopt 
the Jewish faith, and as soon as the neces- 
sary formalities could be gotten through 
with I should marry that Jew. He had 
communicated with me in various ways, 
and he declared that if I would only be bold 
I could easily enough make my father and 
mother forgive me when I had gotten out 
from their influence. I was like a person 
acting in a dream. Father’s trouble brought 
me to my senses — to a great deal of common 
sense. I all at once saw a way to test this 
man; for, though I never would admit it, 
I have always had a faint suspicion that he 
loved my money just a little too well. I 
wrote him all about the apoplectic fit, and 
nothing more; not a word of the losses. 
He sent his sister to the hotel the next day : 
you remember a lady who was with me for an 
hour or more. Both brother and sister were 
full of sympathy for me — little for father. 
They were sure he would soon recover, and 
they urged that I postpone my flight only 
a week or two. They were heartless. I 


RUTH’S JOURNAL. 


317 


need not have reserved my final test; I 
knew before I applied it what the result 
would be. I waited a day, and wrote them 
of the fortune that had dissolved into air: 
I received this letter.” 

“Are you not glad to know before it is 
too late?” I asked. 

“ I am so glad,” she answered, “ that for 
the first time in my life I have really prayed. 
I have told the Lord over and over that 
when I was so wicked and plotting such 
wickedness I can scarcely understand how 
he could be so merciful as to save me from 
myself.” 

I never heard Mabel speak like that 
before; and when she went on in such a 
womanly way to tell how ashamed she was 
of her past, and how glad she was to hope 
in a better future, I could not keep the 
tears out of my eyes ; hers were full of tears. 
She said that I had been a perfect torment 
to her from the day we met on the steamer, 
but that now she must return good for evil 
by always being my friend. She has shown 
her mother the letter and told her the whole 
truth, and Mrs. Merritt says let the mon- 


318 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

ey go if that man goes with it and a good 
daughter is left to her. I am as happy as 
if some good-fortune had befallen me. I 
don’t believe Mabel will ever forget this 
experience. 


CHAPTER XV. 

LOR AIN E FAYE. 

“ He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never 
do anything.” 

T T was a beautiful afternoon about the 
middle of September when Madge Pres- 
ton sprang lightly out of the lumbering old 
omnibus which had brought her, with a 
half dozen other young girls, from the 
station to Mrs. Allen’s seminary. By a 
common impulse, each girl stopped and 
looked about her a moment before she 
entered the gate. From this gate a broad 
tree-bordered walk led to a roomy old 
house with a deep front porch having great 
pillars, around which grew woodbine luxu- 
riantly. The open door showed a wide hall 
dividing the house, and as they entered this 
hall they could see through an opposite 
door a great sunny garden whose walks 

319 


320 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

were bordered by the tallest box-hedge 
they had ever seen, whose flower-beds were 
gorgeous with brilliant autumnal blossoms, 
and whose pretty arbors were thronged 
with merry girls. 

“ The first afternoon is always so pleas- 
ant !” exclaimed an attractive girl whom 
Madge had noticed in the stage. “ Mrs. 
Allen leaves us at liberty to get acquainted 
with the place and with one another. Here 
she comes now. This is my second year 
here.” 

Before Madge could reply Mrs. Allen 
was taking her hand, and on learning her 
name had drawn her into a little reception- 
room to ask her the kindest questions of 
herself and of her mother. Meanwhile, 
Madge had received an impression that 
Mrs. Allen was the most gently-dignified, the 
most winning woman in a certain large way 
whom she had ever met ; it was years before 
she discovered that she was not handsome, 
but simply lovely. She was a tall woman 
with large expressive features, soft brown 
eyes and a beautiful smile. Her clear, deep 
voice was sweet, and her tall figure almost 


LORAINE FAYE. 


321 


grand in the drapery of her black unorna- 
mented dress. She listened attentively to 
Madge’s responses, and quietly gave her 
permission to room with Emma Nelson for 
the present. 

“ That is,” she remarked, “ you will share 
a little sitting-room with her and with Miss 
Faye ; off this room are three bedrooms, 
one for each of you. I think every one 
likes to be alone sometimes.” 

She then discussed Madge’s studies, and 
said in passing that her duties would be laid 
upon her gradually, not at once in any way 
to bewilder her ; and before she ended, 
giving Madge a soft handstroke on the 
curls, the latter assured herself, “I shall 
‘ perfectly worship ’ Mrs. Allen, as Emma 
says ; I know I will suit her. She can be 
very grave and stern, perhaps, but she is 
everything that Miss Elder is not. I 
believe my coming here will be a grand 
success.” 

Emma Nelson, who had arrived several 
hours previously, then came to lead Madge 
to her room, which she found pretty and 
homelike. Miss Loraine Faye, who sat 

21 


322 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


reading by the sitting-room window, was 
a senior, a refined, self-possessed young lady, 
who, greeting Madge politely, went on read- 
ing. Emma hurried Madge into her bed- 
room and shut the door rather too abruptly 
for good manners. She had been unpack- 
ing her trunk and depositing the contents 
on her bed, but she scooped out a place, in 
which she sat, while Madge occupied the 
one chair. 

“ Don’t you think we shall like it here ? 
I do. The place is old-fashioned, but there 
is a sort of style about it. One of the 
girls said that some old aristocrat built it 
more than one hundred years ago. Ain’t 
you sorry that superior person out there is 
our third room-mate ? She has brought 
a small library of her own — books on art 
and dry essays. My Saratoga trunk was 
too big for the quarters here, so it had to 
be carried to the attic ; but first I emptied 
it out there and pitched things in here, as 
you see. She offered, when I began, to 
help me fill the bureau here, but I preferred 
to heave all out and settle afterward ; so she 
pursued her high-toned way, and I saw 


LORAINE FAYE. 


323 


contempt in her eyes. She even had the 
coolness to call my light silks ‘ ball-dresses/ 
and she suggested that they would keep 
more fresh if I stored them away, folded, 
in my trunk, in the attic. I snubbed her 
on the spot.” 

“ But what will you do with them ?” 
asked Madge, laughing. “ You have only 
one closet and one bureau.” 

“Oh, when she doesn’t see me, I shall 
travel up to the attic with them. I suppose 
I could have saved myself that trouble, but 
I wouldn’t take her advice. I do hate girls 
with lofty intellects.” 

“ Oh, they don’t bother me a bit; I admire 
them,” returned Madge, adding, “ Moreover, 
I will profit by your experience and take 
my things out in order.” 

“ Well, we ought to be at work, I sup- 
pose,” said Emma. “ Let us hurry, and 
then go down into the garden.” 

Madge entered her own little room, and 
in less than an hour her closet and drawers 
were in good order. The rest of the day was 
pleasant and exciting. Her schoolmates 
seemed to be bright, agreeable girls, the 


324 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


teachers were not more formidable than 
teachers in general, and the rules of the 
house were few and simple. Mrs. Allen 
always gave large liberty to each scholar 
until she found that liberty abused ; she 
assumed that each possessed a keen sense 
of honor, and to that she constantly appealed 
— usually, with the happiest results. 

At the end of one week Madge was most 
enthusiastic in regard to her surroundings. 
Her charming face and gay humor attracted 
the girls ; her past home-training made her 
seem remarkably well bred, and this secured 
her the favor of the class whom Emma called 
“ superior.’’ The demands which Mrs. Allen 
made on her time were as yet only pleasant 
diversions. She was told that responsibilities 
awaited her in the future, but meanwhile it 
was easy to write a few notes, to go about a 
new town on simple errands and to show 
callers around the building. Her study- 
hours were undisturbed, and her recitations 
gave entire satisfaction. 

Mrs. Allen, whose way it was to say the 
pleasant things which others were content 
merely to think, had frequently in these 


LOR Aim FAYE. 


325 


first days spoken to Madge in the warmest 
terms of her mother, and that in the pres- 
ence of her schoolmates. This would have 
been a fact of no importance in itself, but 
a later impression gaining among the girls 
gave it a certain significance. It was a rule 
of the school that pupils were not allowed 
to go “ shopping ” except on certain days, 
and then with seniors or teachers. Mrs. 
Allen, supposing that Madge, if questioned, 
would, of course, explain why she was an 
exception to this rule, had frequently sent 
her to the drug-store or to the stationer's, 
giving her leave at such times to purchase 
any little article she desired for her own 
use. Now, the girls soon began to take 
note of these privileges accorded Madge, 
and, naturally enough, they misinterpreted 
them. The prevailing opinion came to be 
that Mrs. Allen was showing favoritism, 
but nobody felt aggrieved, for Mrs. Allen 
was always just and kind, while Madge 
seemed either unconscious of her good-for- 
tune or singularly modest about having it 
recognized. 

One pleasant day, after school-hours, a 


326 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


group of the girls sitting on a rustic seat 
in the yard saw Madge come out of the 
front door dressed for a walk. 

“ Where are you going ?” asked Blanche 
Willis, a pretty little blonde. 

“ To the post-office,” returned Madge, col- 
oring, and adding hastily, with fun a little 
forced, “ Girls, you must get ready to talk 
your best this noon; Professor Scribner, the 
geologist, is to dine with us. I am coming 
home soon to prepare myself on one whole 
period.” 

“A period!” laughed Loraine Faye. 
“ Well, I might get along with an inter- 
rogation-mark. I have often noticed that 
the safest way when one is expected to be 
literary or scientific is to ask a question. 
It immediately starts the more learned off 
telling what they know, and the ignorant 
can sit still in peace and learn.” 

In the laugh that followed Madge fan- 
cied she was going to escape nicely, but 
Emma Nelson exclaimed, 

“It is a lovely afternoon for a walk; I 
am going to run in and ask Mrs. Allen if 
I can’t go with you.” 


LORAIN E FAYE. 


327 


“ You can’t see her, Emma,” returned 
Madge, hastily ; “ she is in the parlor with 
the professor and his wife. I heard her 
tell the maid to excuse her if any one 
wished her; she said to send the girls to 
Miss Crockett.” 

“ ‘ Miss Crockett/ indeed ! She never 
would let me go,” grumbled Emma, sink- 
ing back into her seat, but arousing herself 
an instant after to exclaim, “ I think Mrs. 
Allen shows a great deal of partiality to 
you , Madge Preston.” 

“ I am going to take a letter for her,” 
returned Madge, amiably, “and to do an- 
other errand ; she would not let me go just 
for my own amusement.” 

So much was truth, and as Madge said it 
Loraine Faye looked up with a pleased ex- 
pression which puzzled her. 

“ She never breaks over her rules for any 
of us,” pouted little Blanche ; “ I would go 
to the post-office for her gladly enough.” 

“ She used to let Marcia Mahler go that 
way last year,” said a dull-looking young 
girl. 

“ Oh, you goosie !” retorted Blanche. 


328 THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 

“ Marcia was here to help Mrs. Allen ; she 
paid for her schooling in that way.” 

“ Marcie was a noble girl ; I miss her,” 
put in Loraine Faye. “ She would have 
been here this year, only her mother died 
and her father could not spare her.” 

There was a little pause after that. 
Madge’s color was always so brilliant no 
one remarked that her cheeks were redder 
than usual, or that Loraine Faye looked 
for an instant expectant and then with an 
air half disappointed — or, as Emma Nelson 
declared later, “ superior, as usual ” — said, 

“ I never find Mrs. Allen partial. She 
has reasons for whatever she does, and she 
is not under the least obligation to explain 
them to us. We are in honor bound to be 
loyal to her, I think.” 

“ Bring us each a stick of candy,” called 
one of the girls after her as Madge turned 
toward the gate ; and Madge made a laugh- 
ing reply about there being but two kinds 
in the town — “one flavored with pepper- 
mint, and one with catnip.” 

Outside the gate she wondered if it would 
not have been better to have been a little 


LORAIN E FAYE. 


329 


more honest that moment before, there 
under the elm trees. She had the chance ; 
Loraine Faye had so innocently given her 
the opportunity to say frankly, “ It is not, 
as you think, that I am favored by Mrs. 
Allen because my mother is her friend, 
but I am her assistant.” 

“ I suppose they would not have asked 
me any more personal questions,” she said 
to herself, “ for they do not seem to be rude 
girls, and Loraine spoke of that other girl 
who earned her way as somebody not looked 
down on at all. But it is none of their 
business, after all ; they will not complain 
to Mrs. Allen, and if they ask me anything 
more I will tell the truth. Emma Nelson 
would turn her nose up and tell the girls 
at home if she knew. After I have been 
here a while I shall have an assured posi- 
tion, and then I will not care so much.” 

After that trifling episode all went well 
in Madge’s outer life. 

A few weeks after school began, when the 
pupils had settled into regular hours of study 
and the evenings had grown longer, Madge 
learned that the “ Wednesday-evening meet- 


330 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


ings ” would begin. These were held weekly 
in the library, and were led by Mrs. Allen. 
They were informal Bible-readings, with 
prayer and familiar talk on practical re- 
ligion. Every pupil was invited; church- 
members were expected : no one was abso- 
lutely required to be present. Many who 
stayed away or came irregularly the first 
half the school-year were found always 
present the last half, and, with but one or 
two exceptions, “ second-year girls” esteemed 
these meetings as truly a means of educa- 
tion as were their daily classes. 

One evening, when the girls arose from 
the table, they were invited to attend the 
first meeting of the year, to be held an hour 
later. 

“ Must I go?” asked Emma Nelson, turn- 
ing to Loraine as the three entered their 
common room. 

“ Why, you will not be punished if you 
stay away,” returned Loraine, coolly, walk- 
ing to the window, then adding grimly, 
“And you will not be injured in the least 
by going.” 

“I presume not, but I may be bored. 


LORAINE FAYE. 


331 


I never went to a prayer-meeting, though 
I have known people who have gone ; only 
their accounts differ. — You go in Hemp- 
stead, don’t you, Madge?” 

“ Yes. That is, I always used to go when 
Ruth was home ; lately I have not gone so 
regularly.” 

“Are you a church-member?” asked 
Loraine, turning to Madge. 

“ No.” 

“A Christian?” 

Madge, with a nervous laugh, replied, 

“ I know a woman who, when the minis- 
ter called because she was sick and asked 
her that, answered, 4 1 suppose I’m a sort of 
a wicked Christian.’ I might borrow her 
words.” 

Loraine’s only comment as she looked 
moodily out of the window again was 
this : 

“ I don’t think you need ever be lonesome, 
then, as you go through life.” 

Neither girl understood her. 

In a moment Emma returned to the sub- 
ject by asking, 

“Well, are you going to-night, Madge?” 


332 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ Yes, certainly ; Mrs. Allen expects it.” 

“ I can go too, then ; and if I do not 
enjoy it, I need not go again,” said Emma 
as they sat around the centre-table for a 
silent study-hour. 

When the time for the meeting arrived, 
they smoothed their hair, gave a freshening 
touch or two to their attire and started. 

“ Shall we turn the light down, or shall 
we put it out?” asked Madge. 

“ Neither, if you please,” replied Loraine. 
“ I cannot read so well in the dark.” 

“ Are you not going ?” 

“No” 

“ Are you not a church-member ?” asked 
Emma. 

“ No.” 

“Nor a Christian?” she continued, 
bluntly. 

“ No.” 

“ Well, I am astonished!” remarked Emma 
when she and Madge were the other side of 
the door. “ I took her to be a model of 
everything good ; I rebelled against her by 
instinct for that very reason.” 

“ I am surprised too,” said Madge, “ but 


LORAINE FAYE. 


333 


I have rather admired Loraine from the 
first. She reminds me of Ruth, although 
she is as haughty as Ruth is sweet. Not 
haughty, either, but she makes me vaguely 
uncomfortable. If I ever did anything bad 
and was with Ruth, she seemed to me too 
good herself to find me out, and then I was 
ashamed ; with Loraine I feel as if I would 
be seen through, and get justice without 
mercy if I were guilty.” 

“ They put her in our room to keep us 
steady, no doubt.” 

“ Well, I am willing ; we will bear watch- 
ing,” laughed Madge. 

“ I would rather be watched by her than 
by Crockett,” whispered Emma, catching a 
glimpse of a tali woman gliding through 
the hall. “ Loraine might disapprove, but 
she never would carry tales as that knit- 
ting-needle yonder might do.” 

“ I detest Crockett,” was Madge’s hearty 
assent as they entered the library. 

Madge enjoyed the meeting. Mrs. Allen 
opened it with a prayer ; then they sang a 
new and beautiful hymn, led by a young 
girl whose voice was peculiarly touching; 


334 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


after that they talked about, studied into 
and enjoyed as never before a parable that 
they had known all their lives. Madge had 
“ known the holy scriptures from a child,” 
and her prompt replies and often original 
comments pleased Mrs. Allen and interest- 
ed her mates. 

Emma Nelson, on returning to her room, 
exclaimed, 

“ Miss Faye, you ought to have gone. It 
was perfectly splendid.” 

“ That was what you said about the pud- 
ding-sauce at dinner,” said Loraine ; but in 
a moment she added, in a different tone, “ I 
advise you to go every week. Mrs. Allen is 
just as good and just as noble and true as 
the best words she speaks, and that is say- 
ing a great deal.” 

“ Why don’t you go yourself?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

This was no answer, but Loraine’s room- 
mates never took liberties with her. She 
was only a year older than Madge, yet she 
was far beyond or away from her. Madge 
could not herself tell whether it was a dif- 
ference or a superiority. 


LORA IN E FAYE. 


335 


Miss Crockett was the matron of the in- 
stitution, and a woman whose worth no one 
knew so well as Mrs. Allen. She was tall, 
large-boned, gray-eyed and gray-liaired. 
She chose to dress in gray flannel and to 
wear silver spectacles. She considered girls 
as nonsensical creatures, “ sure to take cold 
and die of consumption if not told every 
single time when to put on overshoes and 
wraps;” so she watched like a mother (a 
very relentless one) over the pupils’ health. 
She saw to it that their rooms were kept in 
the daintiest order, she made sure the food 
was always excellent, but, above all, she 
let no one fail in duty toward Mrs. Allen. 
A dozen times a day Madge dodged Miss 
Crockett, for through that outspoken person 
she feared all would be made plain in re- 
gard to her own standing. 

So gradual had been the demoralization 
in Madge’s finer perceptions of the true and 
the false during the year past that she her- 
self would have been aghast could it sudden- 
ly have been revealed to her that she was 
becoming a finished little hypocrite. Hav- 
ing begun to act a part, she had to carry it 


336 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


out, or so she reasoned. She doubled her 
arts as the necessity for them increased. 
Mrs. Allen requested her to see that the 
books were, after certain hours, all put neatly 
back on the library-shelves ; she always did 
this while she studied up some topic from 
the excellent books of reference. The girls 
who went in and out did not see any method 
in her proceedings ; and if, when her own 
lesson was faultlessly learned, the bookcases 
were left in nice order, so much the better. 
Mrs. Allen praised her diligence in looking 
up points in the encyclopaedias ; Miss Crock- 
ett was satisfied ; and Madge ? She never 
reflected that she would have suffered tor- 
ture before she would have confessed her 
mean-spiritedness to her parents, to Grand- 
ma Grey, to Ruth or to Mrs. Allen. There 
was a pretty little reception-room, w T hich was 
also put in her care ; she was to see that it 
was properly heated and lighted, and that 
a bouquet of fresh flowers was kept on the 
table. Considerable manoeuvring was neces- 
sary to accomplish this without seeming to 
have any duty in the matter, but Madge ma- 
noeuvred. She even took pains to do works 


LORAINE FAYE. 


337 


of supererogation — that is, in a merry off- 
hand way she did helpful little things for 
the girls, and gave them the impression that 
she was a bright, obliging creature of the 
kind who is sure to be popular. 

Madge never had been ill-natured; still, 
at home, no sufficient motive had prompted 
her to similar action. She was conscious 
every day that she was winning favor and 
that never before in her life had she been 
so studious, so ladylike, so careful of her 
reputation — and so reluctant to analyze her 
motives in solitude or if by chance she 
awoke in the quiet night-hours. 

Emma Nelson remained perfectly friend- 
ly, but gradually allied herself to a young- 
er girl, a harmless sort of companion, and 
Madge was not at all sorry. She did not 
care for an intimate friend in these days. 
Loraine Faye had regarded her at first as 
very like Emma, but little by little she 
seemed to find Madge worth her attention. 
She liked particularly to hear her tell of her 
home-life, and was much interested in some 
of Ruth’s letters. Madge, if she were not 
equally well read, knew about the books 
22 


338 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


and the writers that Lorain e liked. Then 
neither girl could wholly understand the 
other, and that attracted them mutually. 
It seemed to Madge that Loraine was too 
perverse to appear as good as she really 
was, and Loraine could not make up her 
mind whether or not Madge was as artless 
as she acted. Each was keen-eyed; each 
studied and baffled the other’s study. 

One Wednesday evening, Madge, not 
without a hint from Mrs. Allen to prompt 
her, persuaded Loraine to come to the 
meeting. The topic dwelt on was truth 
and falsehood in speech and conduct. In 
the opening exercise Mrs. Allen read as 
their text the verse : “ Whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
soever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, . . . think on these things.” 

A great many questions were asked, and 
the girls talked very freely about tempta- 
tions to exaggerate or to understate matters. 
They discussed the morality of telling a part 
of the truth, providing one told nothing but 
the truth, and how far they were responsible 
for a wrong impression given by truth pecu- 


LORAINE FAYE. 


339 


liarly stated, and many of the old questions 
always new to earnest thinkers. But the 
three girls on whom that meeting made 
the deepest impression were the three who 
listened almost in silence. 

Lorain e Faye sat apart from the rest, her 
air, as usual, unconcerned, but she lost not 
a word that Mrs. Allen uttered, especially 
when she quoted Pilate’s question, “ What 
is truth?” and Christ’s previously-spoken 
words, “ I am the Truth.” Loraine Faye, 
short as her life had been, had grown bitter 
in her unbelief that the truth existed. She 
thought it only another name for expediency 
or for the best policy. To-night there awoke 
in her heart the old-time cry of those who 
“would see Jesus” — if, indeed, he were the 
Truth. 

Emma Nelson listened, first curiously, 
then getting more and more in sympathy 
with her teacher. She was not a hard nor 
a deliberately bad girl ; she was, above all, 
ignorant. No such mother as Madge had 
known ever had taught Emma what things 
were “true,” “just,” “lovely” and of “good 
report.” There stirred in her this night 


340 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


the first genuine thought — the very thought 
by the text enjoined. 

Madge heard nothing actually new to her, 
but as she listened she was conscious of a 
strange repressed excitement, although out- 
wardly she was paler and quieter than usual. 
Years after, she could recall the scene like 
a picture. Was it because she tried to keep 
out a spiritual light that her bodily eyes 
received such keen impressions of the shad- 
ows on the crimson curtain behind Loraine, 
the missing bow off Emma’s slipper, the 
tremor in Mrs. Allen’s voice as she plead- 
ed with them to beware of that most aw- 
ful form of all deception, self-deception, the 
calling of evil good until one came to believe 
it so ? She saw the girls, she heard Mrs. 
Allen, yet all the time another self seemed 
busy in some depth of her inner conscious- 
ness. She was sitting in her room at home, 
the wind of the summer morning rustling 
the pages of Ruth’s farewell note ; she was 
assuring herself that she would make her- 
self better, would begin to act like a Chris- 
tian — as she understood it, of course. She 
was living over now one day, now another — 


LORAINE FAYE. 


341 


not sweet, restful days, but times of discon- 
tent with their “ poverty,” with her homely 
dresses ; busy with day-dreams of a home 
and wealth like Emma’s, fleeting visions of 
grandma sitting with tired eyes, the paper 
in her lap or the open book waiting for 
somebody to read to her; of Abbey, or 
even blundering Johnny, doing it ; of sudden 
headaches when the church-bell rang or of 
prayer-times spent in planning new finery. 
What had all these things to do with the 
truth ? The Madge sitting here in the 
bright library tried to silence that inner 
Madge with the question, and quickly came 
the answer : “ Whose life all summer was a 
covering up of little follies? Whose life 
is now a sort of petty cheating?” 

It was a relief to hear the clock strike 
nine, and to know that for the half hour 
coming there would be visiting, jesting, 
laughing, planning for the morrow, in the 
girls’ rooms and their social resorts. 

Madge was hastening from the room, 
when Mrs. Allen asked her to remain a lit- 
tle while with her. When they were alone 
together, she said, 


342 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ For the first time I have seen to-night 
that you faintly resemble your mother ; you 
have more color and less repose than she had 
when she was your age. I wonder if you 
are like her?” 

“ Father says that Ruth is more like her,” 
replied Madge, puzzled to see any purpose 
in Mrs. Allen’s remark or in the long pleas- 
ant talk that followed between them about 
Ruth and her travels. 

But when Mrs. Allen had a purpose, she 
made it plain. After a while she said, 

“ I put you and Loraine Faye together 
to help each other: are you doing it?” 

“In what way, Mrs. Allen?” 

“ Loraine as a companion in study ought 
to be a constant inspiration ; there is no girl 
of finer intellect in the school. She thinks 
for herself, she has read excellent books 
understanding^, she is witty and original. 
If she were quite happy, she would make 
sunshine all about her. She is not happy ; 
she distrusts people, and is growing cynical. 
I put her with you to help you mentally ; 
I put you with her in the hope that you 
could help her morally. Your mother was 


LORAINE FAYE. 


343 


the most strongly, transparently truthful 
person I knew among my girl-friends; I 
hope her daughter is like her, for Loraine 
needs to love somebody whom she can 
trust.” 

There was a sudden gravity in Madge’s 
face that encouraged Mrs. Allen to con- 
tinue : 

“ I am going to tell you a little more of 
Loraine than is known here, and you will 
respect my confidence, I am sure. She was 
the daughter of a very able and wealthy man 
prominent in public affairs. Her mother died 
when she was very young, and her father was 
for years her companion and teacher. She 
saw him admired, and her love amounted to 
adoration. When she was fourteen, he mar- 
ried a brilliant woman of society who ruled 
him artfully and disliked Loraine heartily. 
I know this, and have not taken it from 
rumor. She was a person whose conduct 
was always irreproachable in public, but in 
private she was selfish, untruthful, and even 
cruel. I assure you, Madge, that there is 
not a race of women created especially 
depraved just in order to be made into step- 


344 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


mothers, whatever schoolgirls may tell you 
to the contrary. I had a stepmother — one 
of the best women that ever lived on earth ; 
but Loraine’s was, and is, heartless. When 
Loraine was sixteen, her father incurred 
great political disgrace : he was accused 
of betraying his party and of selling his 
honor. The newspapers were full of de- 
nunciations, and his wife, whose social po- 
sition was affected, upbraided and tormented 
him. He went abroad, and died among 
strangers. I knew the family, and I pre- 
vailed on Loraine’s guardian to send her to 
me. Last year this man, who held in trust 
a large property for Loraine, embezzled 
trust funds to a great amount, lost all in 
speculation and committed suicide. She is 
not poor, for her mother had left her a small 
amount that was safely invested, but in her 
life she has had such bitter experiences that 
she has little faith left in any one. I wish, 
Madge, you could make her like and believe 
in you. If she could visit you at home, 
could know your mother and Ruth, such 
a home-life would be a blessed revelation to 
her. Now, won’t you remember her needs 


LORAINE FAYE. 


345 


in your future intercourse with her? and, 
above all, don’t forget that, being a Christian, 
one ought to be, as some one says, ‘ a little 
gospel and Loraine needs a gospel.” 

“ I — I don’t believe I am a Christian,” 
stammered Madge. 

Mrs. Allen was silent a moment before 
she said, 

“ Then you know what you need.” 

“ I don’t know — I don’t,” she repeated to 
herself going up stairs ; “ and I wish I were 
out of it all — were in Europe, and Ruth 
here. She would help Loraine ; I can’t. 
I know enough about truth and the gospel, 
and all that, only — ” 

“ Only you don’t really care, and you 
never have cared, for the reality of it all,” 
whispered her conscience. 

Emma and Loraine were sitting together 
by the table, the latter without her customary 
book. 

“Do all Christians believe the — Well, 
the kind of things Mrs. Allen talked of to- 
night?” asked Emma, playing with a jingling 
bangle on her arm, but looking thoughtful. 

“ I don’t know; ask Madge,” said Loraine. 


346 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


It irritated Madge most inconsistently to 
have Emma reply, 

“ Oh, Madge hasn’t stopped to find out, 
I guess ; the rest of her family are religious, 
but she is different.” 

Until that moment Madge had supposed 
that Emma had always found her rather 
rigid in her precepts and practices. She 
was so startled that she stayed awake think- 
ing the matter over until late that night. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MADGE'S A WAKENING. 

“ So long as we have nothing to say to God, nothing to do 
with him, we are poor creatures — flowering reeds, it may be, 
and pleasant to behold, but only reeds blown about by the 
wind.” 

“/AH, oh, girls ! what do you think is before 
^ us ?” cried Emma Nelson, breaking 
suddenly into the sitting-room one day just 
after school. 

“ A lecture on temperance or on etiquette, 
or from Crockett on the proper mending of 
our stockings ?” suggested Madge. 

“ All that, and more too, is comprehended 
in the catastrophe hanging over us.” 

“ Don’t be rhetorical, Emma, be definite,” 
said Loraine, not even looking from her 
book. 

Emma was too easily excited by trifles to 
have her moods taken very seriously. 

“Oh, you won’t be so loftily indifferent, 
Miss Faye, when you know; for my part, 

347 


348 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

I think this school will seem like a howling 
wilderness.” 

“What are you talking about?” asked 
Madge, impatiently. 

“Just this: Mrs. Allen has been sum- 
moned to her mother-in-law — an old lady — 
who is very ill in Hartford. She is going 
on the six-o’clock train and does not know 
how long she may be gone — perhaps a week, 
perhaps a month. In the mean time, Crock- 
ett’s authority is doubled ; she will be here, 
there and everywhere. You will see if she 
doesn’t go the rounds of this house at mid- 
night regularly to see if we are all asleep on 
our right sides, as is healthy, and not on our 
backs, as is unhealthy, according to Crockett. 
Now, how can I know I am not asleep flat 
on my back unless I stay awake to see, 
and — ” 

“ Do be still with that nonsense and tell 
us truly,” cried Madge, in dismay. “ Is 
Mrs. Allen going away ?” 

“Yes; it is exactly as I say.” 

Loraine had dropped her book, and 
looked more disturbed than they had ever 
seen her. 


MADGE’S AWAKENING. 


349 


“ How we shall miss her !” she said. 
“ The other teachers are well enough, but 
there is no one who can begin to take her 
place.” 

Madge loved Mrs. Allen, yet the upper- 
most thought in her mind just then was a 
dread of Crockett, and for reasons less vague 
than the groundless aversion which Emma 
felt toward the matron. She was silently 
pondering the situation when a maid knocked 
at the door and said that Mrs. Allen would 
like to see her. 

Madge was gone from her room-mates 
only a short time. Mrs. Allen asked her 
to sit down in her cozy dressing-room long 
enough to mend a little rent in her gloves 
while she packed her trunk and gave Madge 
a few kind words of encouragement and 
counsel. She wanted her to know that 
Miss Crockett was the one with whom 
Madge would now have to do. 

“And remember, dear, that you cannot 
take the new scholars’ impressions of Miss 
Crockett’s character as correct. She is a 
kind, true woman, but she always calls ‘a 
spade a spade,’ and she is never unjust, 


350 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


although sometimes she may be abrupt. I 
trust her implicitly, and leave her in au- 
thority.” 

Then, sending a kind message to her 
mother, Mrs. Allen kissed Madge and let 
her go. 

“ I might as well make a virtue of neces- 
sity and take high ground at once,” mut- 
tered Madge as she went up stairs. Ac- 
cordingly, on entering her own room she 
exclaimed, 

“ It is true, and now I suppose we must 
make the best of it.” 

“How is there any best to it?” asked 
Emma. 

“ Mrs Allen wants us to show Miss Crock- 
ett great respect, to — to do our best to please 
her ; and I intend to try.” 

Emma looked at Madge, thinking, “ That 
does not sound like you;” then she said 
aloud, 

“ I suppose Mrs. Allen has been talking 
good to you, and you have made good res- 
olutions in consequence. I do not wonder ; 
I want to be all made over after she talks 
to me.” 


MADGE *S A WAKENING. 


351 


Madge blushed. Not that Emma had 
understood her, for she had not. In this 
case Emma was the more single-minded, 
and Madge realized that her own motive 
was not so pure as Emma supposed. 

That evening, and for many days to come, 
they missed Mrs. Allen’s gracious presence 
at the table and at the weekly meeting. In 
the morning Madge’s troubles began. A 
nice tact had kept Mrs. Allen from things 
that Miss Crockett did as unconcernedly as 
she winked or breathed. Rising from the 
table, the latter said, 

“ Madge, the wind blew hard last, night ; 
you had better dust — ” 

That last phrase was lost, for Madge 
laughed out quickly, 

“ Oh how it blew ! I dreamed Loraine 
was firing revolvers out of our window, 
but I found it was only a loose blind 
banging.” 

So twenty times a day her wits must 
keep her ahead of Miss Crockett. 

One morning Loraine and Madge were 
reading Spenser’s “ Faerie Queene” together, 
when, tapping first, Miss Crockett came in. 


352 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Madge sprang up, insisted that slie should 
sit down, then asked for news of Mrs. Al- 
len, and would not give her a chance to 
more than reply. 

“ I came, Madge, to say that I would like 
you to — ” 

“Oh, Miss Crockett, I know ! I promised 
to arrange those foreign photographs I was 
looking at in the library all over nicely. 
I — ” 

“ No, not that at all. I want you — ” 

Madge began another nervous remark, 
but, much to her relief, she saw that Lo- 
raine had entered her bedroom and closed 
the door. This time Miss Crockett had a 
chance to speak : 

“ I want you to come down and help me 
hem some muslin curtains that I am trying 
to get done to-day ; it is easy work, and we 
will soon have it out of the way.” 

Madge prepared to go instantly. Miss 
Crockett never could get used to the girl : 
sometimes she performed her duties like 
lightning; sometimes she did them in the 
queerest ways and times. 

They hemmed the curtains in a little room 


MADGE’S AWAKENING. 


353 


near the lower hall. Madge constantly 
shivered in the “ draught ” from the open 
door, so it was closed until they were alto- 
gether too warm. Miss Crockett then had 
her change her seat, and all went well until 
two of the pupils came to speak to the matron. 
It was perfectly natural for Madge to take 
that moment to rest and to look out of the 
window, and quite as natural for her mates 
to suppose that she was only there as they 
were — on an errand to Miss Crockett. Be- 
sides, they were the “ governor’s daughters.” 

“ Where have you been all the morning ?” 
asked Emma. “ I thought you were going 
to stay with Loraine and be literary, as you 
said.” 

They were at the table then, and Madge 
made a long, rambling excuse to Loraine for 
running away and not coming back. 

“ It was not of the least consequence,” 
replied Loraine, coldly. 

This was a holiday, and in the afternoon 
the girls brought their fancy-work, books 
or games into the back-parlor, where they 
could be as social and merry as they liked 
to be. Out of doors a heavy storm of wind 

23 


354 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


and rain was beating against the old man- 
sion, but within were young life and laugh- 
ter. Madge had come from the table cross 
and half homesick. She had always taken 
things carelessly and as they came, and this 
haying to be for ever on the alert, for ever 
ready on demand, made her feel like a slave. 
She was in a false position. In keeping it 
she could not respect herself ; if she did not 
keep it, she argued that others would not 
respect her. For the first time she asked 
herself if she were in the right place, any 
way, all question of how she filled that 
place aside. Would not she be happier at 
home? A vision of the sunny old rooms, 
of her unselfish mother, of the dear old 
grandmother, made her heart ache. But 
here she was, and here she must stay. She 
brushed the tears out of her eyes and 
rushed off to the parlor, where soon she 
was the moving spirit of all the hilarity. 

That evening Madge received from home 
a bulky letter made up of a few pages from 
each of the family. Her father wrote of 
her studies; he was glad to hear of her 
enthusiasm, and told her how well Bert was 


MADGE'S AWAKENING. 


355 


doing at the academy. Her mother wrote 
as all such mothers write — messages of love, 
cautions about her health and hopes for her 
happiness. From the other pages we will 
copy a few paragraphs. 

Johnny, in a boyish scrawl tightly sealed 
with wax — because, as he informed Madge, 
“ mucilage is now vulgar ” — wrote thus : 

“ We miss somebody awfully, and can’t 
just tell whether it is you or Abbey. We 
don’t have any more ’versations ; not a soul 
of us knows any more what Uncle Henry 
is thinking of. He sits like the Sphinx and 
eats his buckwheat cakes, and then reads the 
Congressional reports — silent, I mean, of 
course, not sitting like the Sphinx. And 
I never supposed those reports were made 
to be read. Mother must miss Abbey most ; 
she looks tired nowadays. She let me iron 
for her the other morning. I scorched 
a pillow-case seal-brown and fetched the 
iron right through on the other side, but, in 
the main, I helped. She does more in order 
to keep grandma from doing it. One day 
father was sick and had to stay home, and 
people kept ringing the door-bell to ask if 


356 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


he were very sick ; then each one would 
insist on seeing him and detained mother. 
Grandma tried to help, and overdid ; so her 
heart troubled her all night. It was iron- 
ing- and baking-day that day, and Bert 
said you ought to have been at home ; but 
I wished Buth were here. You don’t like 
housework. Maybe Ruth does not, but she 
would fit in easier, I guess. What I miss 
you for most is nonsense. 

“ Ruth is going to start for home the last 
week in October — only ten days from now — 
and in about twenty days we shall see her. 
Grandmother’s face fairly shines when we 
talk about Ruth, and mother looks as if she 
could sing, no matter how tired. I pom- 
meled Bert in the ribs and knocked him 
out of a kitchen chair the other day for 
saying that girls were frauds. He said 
they would sell out their relatives for a new 
breastpin — that they fibbed and cheated and 
were full of variegated tricks. After I had 
sat on his head a few minutes he said he did 
not mean Hempstead girls and he did not 
know Ruth.” 

Ruth’s last letter was sent with the others. 


MADGE’S A WAKENING. 


357 


In it she told of more delightful days of 
Italian life, but what seemed quite to fill 
her thoughts now was the coming home: 

“ I am very happy, and am very well ; 
but when I think of Hempstead, I seem 
to have wings, only they don’t carry me an 
inch toward you. Every morning I awake 
thinking, ‘ Soon I will be in the parlor, see- 
ing mother on the sofa, grandmother with 
her knitting in the big chair.’ I tell you 
my adventures; I ask no end of questions. 
Supper is ready, and we have delicious 
home-food. Oh, I want to see every one 
of you. I think no girl on earth ever had 
such a home — certainly, not a better one.” 

“ Ruth is right ; . she always sees things 
as they are, and I see something else and 
go blundering into mischief and trouble.” 

“ What do you say ?” asked Loraine. 

“ I am homesick.” 

“ I wish I might be ; it is worse to be 
homeless,” returned Loraine, bitterly; and 
Madge knew nothing to say to comfort her : 
she was miserable herself. 

Miss Crockett awoke next morning with 
a project in her brain. She was an inde- 


358 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


fati gable worker, only restrained by Mrs. 
Allen from wearing herself out in service. 
It now occurred to her that in that lady’s 
absence she might achieve a great feat. The 
library carpet was reversible. The side now 
uppermost was dingy and threadbare ; if it 
were taken up, shaken and turned before 
replacing, the room would be much im- 
proved. 

“If I worked as hard as ever I could 
and had one of the servants to help,” she 
said to herself, “ I believe we could have all 
settled by night. Of course I had better do 
it, and I know Mrs. Allen will be pleased.” 

Full of enthusiasm, Miss Crockett arose, 
discharged all her regular morning duties 
and opened the campaign. By ten o’clock 
the carpet was up, cleaned and ready to be 
put down ; the furniture stood at every an- 
gle, inside the room or out according to size 
and movability. Miss Crockett saw her way 
clear before her, for Bridget, her assist- 
ant, was as strong to lift, push or pull as 
Miss Crockett was to plan. She had no 
thought of asking other help, and certainly 
none of any hindrance. 


MADGE’S AWAKENING. 


359 


Madge had just finished her morning re- 
citations, and was going to her room when 
a messenger summoned her to the library. 
There she found Miss Crockett, who, seeing 
her astonishment at the dismantled room, 
rapidly explained her proceedings. 

“ The carpet,” she went on, “ is put down ; 
I’m thankful for that. Doesn’t it look bright 
on this fresh green side ? Well, what I asked 
you to come down for is this : right here in 
the middle of my day’s work what do you 
think has happened ? Little Blanche Wil- 
lis just came crying to me with pain in her 
head and bones ; and if I am any judge of 
such things, I believe the child is going to 
have a run of fever: she has been ailing 
for a week or more. Now, she is an only 
child, and her mother insisted that she 
should be sent home at once in any cir- 
cumstances. My duty is clear ; I must start 
with her on the very next train and see her 
cared for every minute until I deliver her 
to her parents. They live about an hour 
and a half from here by rail, but I can’t 
get a train back until night.” 

“No?” returned Madge, bewildered. 


360 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“ You see what a state of things we have 
here. Now, if you will be brain to Bridgets 
muscle for the rest of the day, you can bring 
all out in order. I don’t want you to lift one 
single heavy article — I forbid that; but just 
run and put on some old dress that won’t 
get dusty or torn, and come back here and 
show Bridget where every table and chair 
goes. When she has put back such things, 
there are a number of matters which I ex- 
pected to do that you will now have to see 
to. Bridget would ruin the bric-a-brac; 
you must dust carefully and put back those 
bronze heads and the marble statues and 
arrange those shells. I will show you how 
to polish the mirror in the door of that cab- 
inet;” and, carried away by her zeal, Miss 
Crockett ran on : “ If you could darn that 
red woolen rug where the hole was burnt, 
I would let you try ; it is a nice job. Now, 
these are things that a lady would do in her 
own house, and — ” 

To Miss Crockett’s astonishment, Madge 
muttered, 

“ Things such as Mrs. Allen never asked 
me to do!” 


MADGE ’S AWAKENING. 


361 


The matron glanced at her face, flushed 
with vexation, and resolved on heroic treat- 
ment. When she spoke next, Madge had 
reason to know that she could “ call a spade 
a spade:” 

“Did Mrs. Allen free you from all re- 
sponsibility before she left?” 

“ She let me suppose — that is, I supposed 
— things would go on about the same,” stam- 
mered Madge, suddenly ashamed. 

“And so they will. When you came, was 
there not an understanding that you were to 
make a return, after a sort, for what you re- 
ceived ?” 

Madge assented, her face growing scarlet. 
Miss Crockett’s tone was not at all hateful 
as she remarked, 

“It costs a young girl about four hun- 
dred dollars for the school-year here: do 
you think the services you render are worth 
that? This is a question Mrs. Allen would 
never ask you, or even ask herself. The 
place you hold is a sinecure; she has you 
here for your good ; she loves your mother 
and likes you. I like you myself, but you 
ought to see things in the right light. I 


362 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


do not know that she would have asked 
you to do these things to-day, but I sup- 
posed that you would willingly help me. 
You need not, however, now.” 

Thoroughly humbled, Madge insisted that 
she could, and would, do all ; whereupon 
Miss Crockett seemed to bear her no ill- 
will, but gave her prompt instructions what 
to do; and half an hour later the matron 
was miles away from the school. 

Madge did not change her dress ; she did 
not carry out her programme literally. She 
went up to her room and took her work, 
a little wool shawl which she was knitting 
for her grandmother’s Christmas present. 

“ Where are you going with that ?” asked 
Emma. 

Madge stopped to tell her room-mates 
how and why Miss Crockett had gone 
away : 

“ I promised her that I would go down 
to the library and oversee Bridget while 
she settles things there.” 

“ Nonsense ! I would not bother. I 
want you to help me with my algebra.” 

“ I will this evening.” 


MADGE'S AWAKENING. 


363 


“You are wonderfully obliging lately. 
Are you trying to be unusually good, or 
what is it?” demanded Emma, bluntly. 
“You do things for Crockett that I never 
should dream of doing.” 

Loraine was listening, so Madge replied, 

“Oh, I do nothing to amount to any- 
thing.” 

“ But you are not under the least obliga- 
tion to do anything for her, are you?” 

“ Certainly I’m not,” exclaimed Madge, 
testily ; then, conscience-smitten, she added 
something about “ helping, out of kindness,” 
anybody who was “ so annoyed as Crockett 
was to-day.” 

“Loraine is scowling,” laughed Emma; 
“ she doesn’t think Crockett is even an 
object of pity.” 

“ I was not thinking of Miss Crockett,” re- 
turned Loraine, rising as the dinner-bell rang. 

Madge, who had begun to desire Loraine’s 
friendship more than that of any one else 
in the school, lingered behind Emma to 
walk down the hall with the older girl ; but 
Loraine was in one of her most unapproach- 
able moods. 


364 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


After dinner Madge slipped away to the 
library. She hurried Bridget as that pon- 
derous creature had seldom been hurried 
before. She darned the rug while sitting 
by it with her own woolen work near as 
a substitute if surprised. 

About three o’clock Loraine came in. 

“ I must stay a few minutes, Bridget,” she 
said, “ but I will not get in your way. I 
want to see a few books.” 

Madge was reading at another bookcase. 

“ There, Miss Preston ! I’ve done every- 
thing Miss Crockett bid me do, and there’s 
naught more but the settlin’ of the laytle 
things. Oh, shall I fetch ye the soft cloths 
for the polishin’ of that cabinet-glass she 
mintioned?” asked Bridget, at last. 

“ Oh yes,” said Madge, quickly ; “ bring 
them, and I will tell you how to do it 
nicely.” 

Bridget, who concluded that she was mis- 
taken in thinking Madge was to attend to 
the glass, did it as ordered ; then, sure that 
she was told not to meddle with the orna- 
mental objects, she departed. The clock 
struck four; Madge must go to work, if 


MADGE’S AWAKENING. 


365 


Loraine was there. She sprang up as if 
with a sudden impulse, exclaiming, 

“ I am going to put up all these shells 
and busts and fancy things. Miss Crockett 
will come back tired, and it will seem nice 
to her to find the room all settled.” 

“ Let me help you,” said Loraine, shut- 
ting her book quickly. 

Madge assented in delight; if any one 
came now, she did not care. She laughed 
and chatted merrily as Loraine, deftly pin- 
ning back her handsome dress, dusted and 
replaced marbles, not talking very freely. 

“ You are tall and straight and white* and 
cold enough yourself, Loraine Faye, for 
a statue of Silence,” cried Madge at last. 
“ Don’t you think anything ? Don’t you 
love or want to love anybody — me, for 
instance ?” 

Madge’s beauty, as she stood there in the 
library, might easily have softened a hard 
heart. The afternoon sunshine sparkled 
in her great dark eyes, and the masses of 
soft curls contrasted with her white fore- 
head and her cheeks, pink as the tinted 
shell she held in one hand. 


366 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


Loraine’s heart was not hard ; she felt 
that she might have loved Madge, but she 
spoke truly when said vehemently, 

“Yes, Madge Preston, I think a great 
deal, and I am angry at you.” 

“ At me ? And what for, pray ?” 

“ You are hypocritical !” 

“ What do you mean by that ?” asked 
Madge, hotly ; she had not a thought what 
charge Loraine would make. 

“What are you doing this work here 
to-day for ? Are you doing it for any such 
reason as you have given to Emma and me ? 
You are not bound to explain anything of 
your private affairs ; but if you do make 
explanations, why do you tell half lies and 
stoop to silly little tricks and evasions ? 
I despise it in you. I knew the day that 
you entered school that you were coming 
to fill Marcia Mahler’s place. You may 
have done in secret what Marcia did, but 
you do not fill her place. She was a noble 
girl — a homely, bashful girl, but we all 
liked and respected her.” 

Madge’s face was as red as Loraine’s was 
pale, but in a voice that trembled with ex- 


MADGE ’S AWAKENING. 367 

citement the latter talked on faster and 
faster : 

“You fancied that you would be looked 
down upon ; perhaps there may be a girl or 
two here who might have slighted you, but 
Mary Staunton, the governor’s older daugh- 
ter, whom you admire, was Marcia’s best 
friend; they correspond now. If you had 
not had a home and a mother and a sister 
such as you have described — if you had 
been Emma, for instance — I could have 
been patient with you. She knows nothing 
better ; she never claimed to be a Christian. 
I gave you chances to be honest, and you 
seized on them to be more deceitful. * There! 
you know it all. Hate me if you must, but 
you shall not think you can make me think 
that black is white and white black. I have 
told no one your secret, nor shall I tell it.” 

Like the wind Loraine went past her 
then, and the library door shut loudly be- 
hind her. 

Madge sank on a chair as if the earth 
had opened under her feet. She vaguely 
wondered why she was not furiously angry 
with Loraine. She dimly realized that later 


368 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


she was going to be exceedingly ashamed 
of herself; even now bewilderment began 
to yield to self-disgust, but still she could 
not rid herself of the idea that there was 
some mistake or some excuse. Nobody on 
earth had ever before despised her. While 
she had not meant to be boldly wicked, had 
she instead been all the time pitiably mean- 
spirited ? It was well that Loraine had 
waited until things were in order before 
she broke out on Madge in this way, for 
the library, was forgotten in the half hour 
of humiliation that followed. 

“ Letter for you, miss,” said a maid, open- 
ing the door and coming in to light the gas. 

“For me? To-day? Why, mine came 
yesterday.” 

“ It is so much clear gain for you, then, 
miss,” remarked the girl, pleasantly. 

With less curiosity than usual, and no 
apprehension, Madge opened her letter and 
found it a brief one from her father: 

“ My dear Child : We write to you in 
a time of terrible anxiety. A message came 
to us by cable this morning that Ruth lies 


MADGE ’S AWAKENING. 


369 


very seriously ill in London ; letters are on 
the way with full particulars. John Ray- 
nor would never have sent this message to 
reach us before their letters if he had dared 
to leave it unsent, so our hearts are heavy 
with fears that before any letters can arrive 
we shall learn that our precious Ruth is not 
coming again to us from across the sea, or 
only — But we are praying while we wait 
in suspense. If any message comes, you 
shall know it by telegraph, and then at once 
come home, for your mother will need you ; 
I fear that she has needed you in the past. 
But do not start until I send you word. 

“ Your loving 

“ Father.” 

Loraine was standing by the window gaz- 
ing moodily out on the leafless trees when 
Madge opened the door in a clumsy way. 
Her face was colorless; she gasped as if 
she would have spoken ; then, seeming to 
remember something, she gave a passionate 
cry, and, flinging herself on her bed, sobbed 
until Loraine was greatly distressed. She 
came to Madge at once, exclaiming, 

24 


370 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


“I did not want to be cruel, Madge; I 
only — ” 

“ There ! there ! Read that !” wailed 
Madge, pushing the crumpled letter into 
Loraine’s hands. 

In the moment after she read it Loraine 
was back, and all the pent-up tenderness of 
a strong nature came out in the warmth with 
which she took Madge in her arms and tried 
to comfort her. Love is better than consist- 
ency, and neither girl then recalled the hour 
just passed. Loraine had loved Madge in 
spite of her failings : she knew it now as 
she grieved with her ; while Madge felt in- 
tuitively that one so honest in truth-telling 
would not pretend a sympathy which she 
did not feel. 

Loraine taxed herself to make comforting 
conjectures, but Madge could only wail : 

“Ruth will die — I know she will! She 
was all ready long ago. You can’t judge 
of her by me. Oh how I remember the 
day she went away as she turned back at 
the gate to look again at grandma ! Her 
hair was bright golden in the sunshine, and 
her hands were full of apple-blossoms. I 


MADGE’S AWAKENING . 


371 


never was so wicked until she went away. 
She always went ahead in a sweet, simple 
way, doing the right thing. And I sup- 
posed I was good too. She must have known 
I was not, though she loved me all the same, 
for she wrote me a beautiful note and left it 
with — with — ” 

But Madge could not tell, for sobbing, of 
Buth’s pretty gifts that filled the old bureau- 
drawer. 

“She begged me to answer that note and 
tell her I had made up my mind to be a 
Christian, but I never wrote. She said in 
it, ‘ I shall pray for it and wait for it, and 
I believe I shall get it.’ But maybe it is 
too late now for me to give it to her. I 
have wanted to write it ever so many times, 
but I was proud and too eager to do some- 
thing more exciting than just to think. 
Oh, they took her away so pretty and fair 
and full of life across that ocean; now to 
think they may bring back just — a coffin ! 
Oh dear! how can I endure it? Do you 
think, Loraine, if she should be dead and 
I should put a little note in her hand, that 
even then she could ever know it ? I shall 


372 THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 

be always remembering that she waited and 
wished and never really touched an answer 
of mine.” 

Loraine was crying too, and could not 
answer. It was Loraine who let Madge 
talk or who soothed her as seemed best, 
Loraine who persuaded her to swallow a 
cup of tea and who told Miss Crockett when 
she returned. Everybody was full of sym- 
pathy, but only Emma was allowed to see 
Madge, and she, poor girl ! was speechless. 

No message came that evening. Loraine 
stayed with Madge, and neither slept. It 
was a night that Madge never forgot, and 
one that left a deep impression on her com- 
panion. All there was true, earnest and 
womanly in Madge came out with open 
confession of the follies and shams which 
all at once she was clear-eyed enough to 
see in herself. She said sterner things of 
herself than Loraine had uttered. But 
that which impressed Loraine most deeply 
was the perfect faith Madge expressed and 
strongly felt in religion — not in her own, 
but in the love of God and the hope of 
heaven that her mother, her grandmother 


MADGE'S AWAKENING. 


373 


and this young sister possessed. They were 
genuine Christians, and Madge, knowing it, 
made Loraine also know it by her uncon- 
scious eloquence. 

“ If your sister Ruth lives,” she exclaimed 
once, impetuously, “ I want to know her ; 
she will do me good.” 

Toward morning Madge fell asleep, and, 
wearied with excitement, she did not awake 
until after the breakfast-hour. When she 
opened her eyes, Miss Crockett stood by 
her bedside with a little tray of dainty 
food. She urged Madge to lie still an hour 
or two longer, for she could not study with 
her aching head, and she needed rest if she 
might be sent for later in the day. Madge 
yielded willingly to Miss Crockett, wonder- 
ing at her motherly way, so different from 
her usual dry manner. Miss Crockett said 
a few hopeful words, drew down the window- 
shade and went out, leaving Madge alone 
with her own thoughts. 

Madge did not sleep any more. She 
heard the girls go softly past her door to 
their classes ; bells rang faintly in the dis- 
tance ; the school-life, so interesting to her 


374 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


yesterday, went on the same to-day. What 
made all so different to her? Just the 
realization that the sun would go on shin- 
ing as brightly into her window if, away in 
England, Ruth was struggling in her death- 
agony far from all she loved the best. The 
girls in this merry old house would be full 
of life and vigor if her sister — sweeter and 
fairer than any of them — were lying white 
and still, done with this life for ever. Only 
to think that Ruth’s life and hers, always 
the same hitherto, had suddenly separated! 
Ruth’s ? Where and how would it now go 
on? Something it must become infinitely 
higher and purer than she could imagine. 
And Madge’s own? But had they, after 
all, lived alike? In the silence there alone 
Madge reviewed their past school-days, their 
home-pleasures and duties, and for the first 
time she fully understood that Ruth had 
been trying to find out what was true, while 
she had only cared to know what was en- 
joyable. Ruth had been loving God and 
“ others ” as herself ; Madge had begun and 
ended at herself. Ruth had been anxious 
to be; Madge had been satisfied to seem. 


MADGE ’S A WAKENING. 


375 


Ruth was a Christian, and Madge was not : 
this comprehended all. 

“ Thank the Lord,” she said to herself 
when she reached this point of candid con- 
fession, “ I can at least begin ! And I am 
heartily sick and ashamed of myself. If 
there is a better way — and Ruth found it — 
I will find it for myself.” 

Before the hour when she might receive 
a letter she dressed herself and went down 
stairs. A number of the girls were in the 
hall, and all gathered around her sympa- 
thetically, hoping that the next mail would 
bring her better news and expressing great 
regret at the prospect of her returning 
home. 

“Oh, if she goes home, she must come 
back to us. Good news may cheer her 
family, and they will not need her so 
much,” said Loraine, joining the group. 

“Perhaps,” said Madge, sadly; then an 
expression of some sudden purpose crossed 
her face, and she said, “ There is one reason 
why I am peculiarly sorry to leave. Perhaps 
you may not know that I am Mrs. Allen’s 
assistant ; I help her in little things in return 


376 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


for my tuition and board. If I have to 
drop out of the term now, I have kept some 
other young girl from having my place for 
the year, perhaps.” 

A few of the girls looked a little sur- 
prised. Loraine’s eyes sparkled through 
tears. The girl whom Emma Nelson de- 
clared the “ most stylish ” girl in the school 
was the one to say, with her hand on Madge’s 
shoulder, “ Why, I would not worry one bit 
about that; you could not help it, and we 
don’t want anybody but you. We must 
have you back again and the governor’s 
daughter added, “ I will confess now that 
when I knew you were coming here in 
Marcia Mahler’s stead I felt so sorry, but 
now I should be very sorry to see your 
successor.” 

They were very kind, but what sank 
deepest in Madge’s heart then was the 
knowledge that all her petty subterfuges, 
all the false shame she had endured, had 
been utterly unnecessary. Those whom she 
most cared to deceive had known the truth 
from the first. She might just as well have 
been perfectly open and honest; then she 


MADGE ’S AWAKENING. 


377 


might have deserved the respect which the 
girls had not thought of withholding. Not 
that all Mrs. Allen’s scholars were excep- 
tionally noble by nature — far from it ; but, 
as Madge learned later, another girl; braver 
than she, had gone before and trodden down 
all the thorns in the way. Marcia Mahler 
had borne sneers and slights, had heard 
allusions to charity -scholars and presump- 
tion, but she had lived it all down, had 
ennobled her position and won love and 
esteem. Madge had merely to accept what 
Marcia had won. 

At noon Madge had another letter from 
her father. He wrote that they had just 
received a letter written from London in 
the beginning of Ruth’s illness. She had 
been well up to their arrival there, when 
she was taken with typhoid fever. At the 
time when Mrs. Raynor wrote, she was not 
alarmingly ill, and she assured them that 
she was receiving the best care and they 
should be informed of every change in her 
condition. That was all, and of course the 
later telegram proved Ruth worse. Mrs. 
Preston then advised Madge to come home 


378 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


for the present. Her mother hesitated to 
take her from school, but now it would be 
impossible for her to attend to her duties 
with an undivided mind ; and, besides, she 
was needed at home. 

Loraine put back Madge’s simple ward- 
robe in her trunk and cared for her like an 
elder sister. Miss Crockett provided every 
comfort for her journey, and a few hours 
later Madge turned her face homeward. 

Johnny met her just at dark when she 
stepped out of the close car, and as they 
walked up the hill together he poured into 
her ears the story of the past months. 

“I have been needed here; I ought not 
to have gone away,” was the echo his words 
awoke. 

The moment the gate clicked the hall 
door opened, and Madge saw her mother 
standing in the warmth and the light to 
welcome her. Grandma was just behind 
with both trembling hands outstretched, and 
it seemed to Madge that each one welcomed 
her with a certain intensity, remembering 
the child whom only their prayers could 
reach. It was very sweet to get into the 


MADGE’S AWAKENING. 


379 


home atmosphere once more, but after a 
night’s rest Madge saw how much there 
was for some one to do if her mother was 
not to be broken down by work and worry. 
Work was just what Madge needed in order 
to carry her new purposes into action. 

The first Sunday after her return she told 
her mother the whole tale of her mistakes 
and folly, from the day that Ruth went 
away to the hour when Loraine told the 
plain truth which so startled her. That 
Sunday, with many tears, Madge wrote 
her note of promise to Ruth, wondering 
if Ruth would ever read it. 

Every day they watched for letters or 
telegrams. The Professor went through his 
school-duties with aching head and heavy 
heart ; Mrs. Preston grew paler, and grand- 
ma would sit for hours with closed eyes and 
folded hands, not knitting now. 

One morning, when the first great storm 
of the season was filling the air with hail, 
sleet and wind, a telegram came : “ The doc- 
tors pronounce Ruth out of danger.” Who 
knew that the sun was not shining then? 
No day wherein birds sang and flowers 


380 


THE PROFESSOR’S GIRLS. 


bloomed could be more beautiful to the 
faint hearts that sang for joy after that 
message. Grandma began to count the 
weeks before it would be safe for Ruth to 
cross the ocean. Mrs. Preston, with bright 
eyes and color coming back to her face, re- 
turned to the kitchen to make something 
“ tempting for your poor father, who has 
eaten nothing lately,” as she said to Madge. 
Madge, like her old laughing self again, told 
her that she might be tolerated there, but 
not encouraged. 

Loraine wrote a long letter so affection- 
ate that Madge wrote back to her: 

“ I am going to make you like me here- 
after, Loraine, by deserving your good opin- 
ion, and some day I am going to give you 
a grand present. Perhaps you may think 
I can’t give away my sister Ruth, but I 
mean to do it — after a fashion. Uncle 
Henry (he is a member of the family 
who says little and decides much) thinks 
that after Ruth gets home and is strong 
again she may want to go to Millbridge, 
and in that case we may both be at Mrs. 
Allen’s another year.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

REUNION. 

T HE last week in November was a very 
busy and a very happy season under 
the Preston roof. The day before Thanks- 
giving the Raynors and Ruth were to arrive. 

Tuesday evening came the first snow- 
storm of the season. Johnny, standing at 
the window, exclaimed, 

“ Mrs. Parker’s boarder has come.” 

“ What do you mean ?” asked his grand- 
mother. 

“ Why, Madge and I have been interest- 
ed in Mrs. Parker’s boarder for a week or 
more,” replied Johnny. “ She said she was 
going to have a boarder ; and when I asked 
who it was, she said, * Time will reveal.’ ” 
At that moment there came a shout from 
Bert and a cry of surprise from Madge. 
Then the door flew open, and in they came, 
one on each side of Abbey, whose face 

381 


382 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


shone with delight. In a moment all the 
family arrived, and Abbey’s welcome was of 
a kind to satisfy the most exacting nature. 

“ Have you come to stay ?” cried Johnny. 

“Well, that depends on you. Mother 
was proper glad to see me, and she needed 
me to cheer her up. She did not care a 
straw about staying there; so I wrote to 
Mrs. Parker and proposed that she should 
let mother have the wing to her little house 
and live with her. You see, I thought, if 
you wanted me back, that I would have 
mother where I could speak to her by 
just opening the kitchen door. If she 
wanted me, I could stay every night with 
her. I told Mrs. Parker to keep the thing 
secret. I got into town with mother last 
night, after dark, and she is over there 
visiting with Mrs. Parker as if she had 
known her all her life. And now am I 
coming back to you or not?” 

“You am,” cried Johnny, and by the 
chorus of “ Yeses ” that followed Abbey’s 
mind was set at rest if she had been in 
any doubt as to the result of her proposal. 

“ Grandmother,” exclaimed Madge, later, 


REUNION. 


383 


as she lighted the lamps in the parlor, “I 
feel as if I had just waked up.” 

The old lady was about to speak, when 
voices were heard outside. The Professor 
called from the hall, “ They are here at the 
door,” and everybody rushed to his side. 

How they all talked at once ! How they 
caught at Ruth and hugged her ! not mind- 
ing, as Johnny said, whether they kissed 
her face or hair or thick dark veil. 

Was there not a whole Thanksgiving day 
on the morrow? and never was one more 
truly kept. 

After dinner the two girls ensconced 
themselves in a cozy corner and talked of 
their friends. Madge went over her brief 
experience at Mrs. Allen’s, and was glad to 
hear Ruth say, 

“ Oh, Madge, when I am strong, perhaps 
we will both go there and do our best to 
learn. I will like your friend Loraine, 
and, as for Mrs. Allen, I like her now. 
Only think! it is not a year since that 
night I was taken ill and fainted — that 
night you wished something would hap- 
pen, you remember,” said Ruth. 


384 


THE PROFESSOR'S GIRLS. 


“ Enough has happened,” exclaimed 
Madge. “ You have crossed the ocean and 
come back to say home is the most beau- 
tiful place you have found, and I — I have 
got ready at last to promise what you asked 
for in the letter you left behind.” 

“I knew you would, for — ” 

Bert Baynor and Johnny came then to 
join their company, and so with light hearts 
they chatted until the day was done. 

“We will sleep together now,” said Madge, 
“ for Bert has the room I had when you were 
home before.” She had tried to make the 
little chamber look as it looked when Buth 
kept it in such dainty order ; she had even 
remembered to replace the little calendar. 
“You will have to get a new one soon, 
Buth,” she said, stopping before it to read 
the verse for the day ; “ the leaves for this 
year are almost gone. I like this verse for 
to-day : 

“ ‘ Lord, for the erring thought 
Not into evil wrought; 

Lord, for the wicked will 
Betrayed and baffled still ; 

For the heart from itself kept, — 

Our thanksgiving accept.’ ” 






















































































































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